Dharma World Buddhist magazine

An Engaged Buddhist View of Shared Security

by Sallie B. King

What might Buddhists have to offer a world longing for security in an age of violence? This is an important but daunting topic for Buddhists! What can Engaged Buddhists, who are either pacifist or pushing as much as possible in the pacifist direction, have to offer to a world so overrun with violence and war? In the Dhammapada, the Buddha taught that hatred cannot be overcome by hatred; hatred can only be overcome by non-hatred. So perhaps Buddhists may have something to offer a violent world, after all. Let us begin by considering the contribution of Rev. Nikkyo Niwano.

I would like to express my great esteem and respect for Rev. Niwano's vision and action in pursuing interreligious understanding and cooperation. With all the pressing issues before us, some might think that interreligious understanding should take a low priority. Rev. Niwano, however, had a vision of world peace that put interreligious cooperation right at the top in priority, and I believe that he was right.

My conviction that Rev. Niwano was right in his approach to peace is based upon an event that occurred in 1988: the shooting down of an Iranian airbus by an American naval warship. All aboard the airliner, approximately 290 people, were killed. All but 38 were Iranians; 66 were children. This tragedy was horrific enough, but hard on its heels came another blow: the American response. In a survey of the American people shortly after the shooting, over 90 percent said they thought the American warship was justified in the shooting. This American response is truly shocking in its implications. The American people could never have said this if the airplane had been full of Christians, or Europeans. The shooting would have been intolerable, no matter what the reason. But to the American people, the people on that airliner were "other." It is a sad fact of human psychology that the more we perceive someone as the "other," the more we accept treating them as less than we expect "our own" people to be treated. In 1988, Americans could not perceive Iranian civilians and children as people like them. This is the bottom line.

Rev. Niwano had his finger on exactly this point. Throughout his life, he taught that all of humankind is one people. He taught that we are all sons and daughters of the same supreme reality. All our religions spring from the same supreme source. Rev. Niwano worked hard to establish and promote organizations that foster interreligious understanding. I honor and esteem him greatly for his promotion of interreligious understanding as one of the critical keys to building world peace. Among all the Engaged Buddhists, he is the one who most deeply understood this point and most actively worked to promote healthier understanding among peoples. This is a great legacy.

Let us turn now to our situation today. In order to think about the challenge of finding a way to "shared security" in the world today, I would like to examine how the Sri Lankan Engaged Buddhist group, Sarvodaya Shramadana, has worked with the civil war in Sri Lanka between the Sinhalese and Tamil peoples.

The Sarvodayans draw upon the Buddha's Four Noble Truths in an innovative way, using them not only for their spiritual guidance but also as a template to shape their thinking. When we apply the Four Noble Truths in this way, they are:

1. state the problem;
2. analyze the cause;
3. envision and believe in complete well-being; and
4. detail the way to cure the problem.

When Sarvodaya applied the Four Noble Truths in this way to the civil war situation in Sri Lanka, they came up with the following results, as posted on their website in 2001:

1. The problem is war and violence in Sri Lanka. ("The problem is not the Tamil Tigers or the Government; the problem is violence.")
2. The cause is poverty and ethnic hatred.
3. The goal is a sustainable, spiritually balanced island that works for all.
4. The way to cure the problem is the Sarvodaya Peace Program. Some of the features of this program are:

(1) Work for a cease-fire. How might it be possible to obtain a cease-fire? The approach is to eliminate popular support for violence. They list three steps to achieve this:

? Eliminate violence from the people's hearts and actions through participation in large, public peace meditations. Educate the media to support this effort rather than ridicule it. (These meditations gathered up to 100,000 people, meditating on the traditional Buddhist value of metta, or loving-kindness, for oneself, for loved ones, for neutral people, and for those with whom one was struggling, the so-called enemies. At the end of the event, participants were asked to meditate in this way daily at home.)
? Ask everyone you know to stop violence and stop supporting violence.
? Speak against violence and for peace at every opportunity.

(2) Work toward healing, reconciliation and inclusivity for all Sri Lankans at the local community level. The "1,000 Village Link-up" program brought volunteers from the more affluent Sinhalese areas to live for a year in the less affluent Tamil areas, sharing their lives and developing understanding and friendship.

(3) Acknowledge your own and others' suffering. Acknowledge the pain you have caused others. Work to heal suffering at the local community level.

(4) Work to meet all parties' economic, social, and spiritual needs. (Sarvodaya has identified ten basic needs and has developed very concrete programs to meet them.)

(5) Have all parties engage in a national conversation on envisioning a future that works for all, including the writing of a new, inclusive constitution.

We may note the following points about Sarvodaya's analysis of the Sri Lankan civil war and their plan for resolving it. First, the way the problem is stated is very important. Note that there is no one-sided blaming in this approach. They simply look for where there is suffering and name it. Second, the third step, envisioning the goal, is an effort to state a win-win solution. Sarvodaya embraces a classic Buddhist way of thinking when they point out that when you remove the fuel, the fire goes out. It is not necessary for one side to "win" at the other's expense. The war will end when its causes are removed. Third, the fourth step assumes the reality of interdependence and points to the necessity of multifaceted programs.

Using this model, how might this approach be applied to the theme of finding a way to "shared security" in our current, violent global situation?

1. We must state the problem neutrally: the problem is violence and the threat of violence against civilians.

2. Cause: here it becomes difficult to avoid politics, but note that the approach implies an emphasis on educated, professional analysis, as opposed to politicized rhetoric. I am not an expert! But to see how the approach works, perhaps we could name the following as some of the causes of our current situation:

? Past wrongs and a history of conflictual relationships.
? Deep poverty and unemployment in developing countries.
? Religious extremism.
? Perceived disrespect for other cultures and religions (here we can see the direct link between healing interfaith relations and achieving peace, and the importance of Rev. Niwano's contribution in this area).
? Western dependence on oil.

3. Vision: a peaceful planet that works for all. This includes:

? Economic sufficiency for all.
? Security for all.
? Cross-cultural and interfaith respect.

4. The way to the goal (of course, there are many possibilities here; the following mentions just a few):

? Acknowledgment of past wrongs. We might name here both the Iranian airbus tragedy--we have never apologized for that--and the Iranian act of holding American Embassy personnel hostage. There are always wrongs on both sides.
? A Marshall Plan for the Middle East: a crash program to help the area develop economically. In the past, this approach has earned the United States lasting friends.
? Intervisitation programs of all kinds.
? A crash program to develop nonpetroleum energy sources.

And finally: What if after 9/11, instead of Americans reacting the way we did, we had had mass peace meditations, chanting metta, or loving-kindness, for those who were killed, for those who loved them, for the heroes of the day, for the traumatized, for the country as a whole, and for Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda?* This does not mean wishing the perpetrators happiness from their violent actions! It means wishing them genuine well-being, based upon genuine causes of well-being: wisdom, inner peace, gentle behavior, compassion, and kindness. This may sound insane. However, consider the likely effect of such a thing on the attitudes of all those involved and of all those watching around the world. The way the United States did react cost Americans the sympathy of the world. Perhaps it's time to try something insane. Take away the fuel and the fire goes out. It's worth reflecting on.

* This idea was suggested by B. Alan Wallace at a meditation retreat in Charlottesville, Virginia, the weekend of December 9 and 10, 2006.

Sallie B. King is professor of philosophy and religion at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia. She is a trustee of the international interfaith Peace Council and former president of the Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies. She has published widely on Buddhism, the cross-cultural philosophy of religion, and Buddhist-Quaker relations.

This article was originally published in the April-June 2007 issue of Dharma World.

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