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July 16, 1979
Ocean Cove, California
Dear Shih Fu,
Our bowing pilgrimage wants to stop wars, disasters, calamities, and suffering of all kinds. Our handout sheet that explains our work says, "If our bowing is sincere, then calamities and suffering will be reduced, and wars and destructive weapons will gradually disappear."
The Bodhisattva vows that all beings
give up and leave behind all knives,
swords, military weapons, and tools of
evil and suffering, and that they culti-
vate many kinds of good karma.
-- Avatamsaka Sutra
Many Americans own guns. As a boy, I used to wear a quick-draw holster and practice shooting "bad guys" in the bedroom mirror. With the kids in the neighborhood, I played "guns" after school. It took various forms--cowboys and Indians, cops and robbers, Allies verses Nazis--but it all amounted to running around the block carrying toy weapons and shooting each other dead. At night, we learned how to do it by watching T.V. shows like Combat, Gunsmoke, Dragnet, The Lawman, Have Gun Will Travel...the television was our school for violence. I am deeply programmed to believe that when things don't go my way, it is perfectly okay to kill to resolve my conflicts. I'm not alone in this view. Social scientist, Herman Kahn, in addressing an ivy-league freshman class on violence and the American way of life, as I recall, asked questions like these: How many of the students had ever lived with their grandparents? Very few had. He asked how many had owned BB guns by their early teens and .22 caliber weapons before entering college. Over half of the group raised their hands. (I'm quoting from memory--I read the article in a Co-evolution Quarterly three years ago, and the statistics may be inaccurate.)
Americans are not unique in the mental preparation for killing. Every society has respected the soldier caste: India's Kshatriyas, Japan's Samurai, Rome's centurions, the British Navy--all have maintained the sanction for bloodshed. Civilizations without armies are the exception. One can make a case that people are violent and savage by nature.
I came from a military background. My male relatives for the most part have all served in the armed forces. I took killing for granted until a few years ago, when I began to question it. "Where did all the disasters and misery of this world come from?" I wondered. "Is it our lot as people to kill?" I found my answer. My heart awoke to the Buddha's Way of kindness and compassion when I read these words written by Ch'an Master Hua:
There are so many wars! How
sorrowful! How painful! Every
single disaster comes from acts
of killing...and acts of killing
from the mind... What is the pre-
sent time? It is the time of the
imminent extinction of living
beings. As we look around the
Dharma Realm, we see that countries
battle each other, families contend
with each other, individuals strug-
gle against one another, on and
on until great wars between world
systems arise...I hope that the
leaders of all countries will em-
body the preference heaven and
earth have for life, establish
good government and dispense jus-
tice, banish quarreling and dis-
pense with greed, ignore them-
selves and help others, benefit
themselves by benefiting others,
see the Universe as one family,
and see all people as one person.
An ancient worthy said, "If anyone
is killed, it is as if I killed
him myself"...
Water-Mirror Reflecting
Heaven, Preface
What a powerful statement against war! Here was the solid principle I sought. How clear-cut and simple: don't kill. See all people as kinfolk. It illumined our upside-down preference for death over life. The Bodhisattva Precepts spell it out more clearly:
A Bodhisattva must not collect knives,
clubs, bows and arrows, swords, axes,
(guns), or any other weapons used in
fighting or waging war, nor may be
keep nets, traps, or other instru-
ments of evil which may be used in
killing beings...
-- Tenth Minor Precept
A disciple of the Buddha must not,
for the sake of personal benefit or
with evil intentions, act as a coun-
try's emissary in a capacity where
his involvement may bring about the
confrontation of military forces, the
commencement of battle, and the sub-
sequent slaughter of countless beings.
A Bodhisattva must not even go among
military troops or have dealings with
them, much less deliberately act as
a plundering brigand under the guise
of serving his country.
-- Eleventh Minor Precept
This is the cornerstone of the Buddha's way of compassion: don't kill. A monk once asked our teacher if when confronted by hostile people could he defend himself with his fists. The answer: "Absolutely no fighting! If you fight with anyone for any reason, you may no longer consider yourself my disciple."
Fighting and anger are source of killing and wars. As one man put it, "The Buddha taught compassion. That means, stop knocking the other guy around! I'm not your enemy, I'm your friend." And Buddhist disciples do not take life for this reason.
The Great Compassion of the Buddha embraces all living beings. We were instructed as we began our journey to "be really careful of the ants and mosquitoes." The Master said, "When you kill insects, they come to me and say, 'That disciple is no good. He breaks precepts!
Great Compassion sees all beings as one family. We all share the same basic substance. All men are my father and brothers, all women are my mother and sisters. Where is there space for a thought of killing or anger or fighting?
The second of the Ten Grounds describes a Bodhisattva's attitude towards killing in this way;
A Bodhisattva by nature is apart
from all killing of beings. He does
not hold weapons. He does not harbor
feelings of animosity. He knows shame
and remorse. He is completely humane
and merciful towards all that lives.
His thoughts are always kind and
helpful. He does not trouble living
beings with an evil mind, much less
think of other beings and then inten-
tionally kill or harm them.
-- Avatamsaka Sutra
Filiality is the basis of the Buddha's teachings of compassion. When the family is happy, then the cities can be peaceful and the nations of the world will come together. On Independence Day, as we bowed along the rocky blue Sonoma Coast, I came upon some new rallying cries for Americans. Not battle cries, but peace cries: It's time to turn myself around and to stop the killing habit. We need filiality, not firepower! Drop your pistols, not your parents! Abandon your guns, not your grandparents! Why do we kill? It's because we have been killed in the past. Sickness and early death come from the same source: killing. Cause and effect-- karma--is not off by a hair. As the Sutra explains:
The offense of killing can cause
living beings to fall into the realms
of the hells, the animals, or the
hungry ghosts. If reborn as humans
they obtain two kinds of retribution:
the first is a short life, the second
is much illness. -- Avatamsaka Sutra
This is the Buddha's voice of Great Compassion speaking to us here and now:
If we do not wake up soon and re-
nounce the causes, conditions, methods,
and acts of killing, it will certainly
be difficult to avert great disasters
and difficult to obtain, peace and happi-
ness...Look at modern science: it is
new every day and different every month.
Military weapons are modernized every
day and different every month. Although
we call this progress, it is nothing
more than progressive cruelty. Science
takes human life as an experiment--as
child's play. It fulfills its huge
desires and aims through force..."
-- Water-Mirror Reflecting Heaven
The beer bottle that broke our car window last month came from my thoughts of anger towards my partner. It might as well have been an atomic bomb. The source is the same, only the degree is different. Our bowing pilgrimage has opened my eyes to my responsibility to make a peaceful world by making my mind peaceful. Our thoughts make the world. As long as I still wear my childhood gun belt and practice my quick-draw and "make believe" killing 'bad guys " when things don't go my way, then I am no different from the soldiers and the scientists who kill outright. As long as I fight inside my mind or contend with the world to be #1, the Fastest Gun, I am not fit to call myself a disciple of the Buddha. And this is, above all, my ultimate goal: to transform greed, hatred, and stupidity into morality, concentration, and wisdom, to be praised by the Honored Ones in all the worlds, and then to cause all beings to become Buddhas. There have never been more noble words written than these:
Why shouldn't we think instead of
washing clean the body and mind, of
brushing away accumulated dirt, of
developing a sense of shame, of pain-
fully changing our former wrongs to
create a new life, of being unique
and awesome persons full of great power,
of doing beneficial deeds in the Dharma
Realm, of taking the citizens of all
nations as brothers and creating virtue,
of establishing a model for all under
heaven. Doing this is called repre-
senting heaven in teaching. For the
sake of the country, teach the people
with loyalty and filiality.
-- Water-Mirror Reflecting Heaven
Many people love their guns, but now that we have the Buddhadharma in our land, we will learn to love kindness and compassion more. Buddhism is the teaching of people, the teaching of all beings, the teaching of the heart. As the Master put it,
Buddhism changes the flat
tire of the Universe by creating
good energy in the world.
Disciple Kuo Chen
(Heng Sure)
bows in respect