

   
   
              BPS Newsletter Cover Essay #18 (Spring 1991)
                                           
                                           
                          LAYING DOWN THE ROD
                                           
                            by Bhikkhu Bodhi
                                           
                                           
   
   
   The textbooks of history come into our hands bound in decorative 
   covers and set in crisp clear types. To the discerning reader, 
   however, their glossy pages are stained with blood and wet with 
   streams of tears. The story of man's sojourn on this planet has 
   generally not been a very pretty one. For sure, deeds of virtue and 
   flashes of the sublime light up the tale like meteorites shooting 
   across the night time sky. But the pageant of events that the 
   records spell out for us unfolds according to a repeated pattern in 
   which the dominant motifs are greed and ambition, deceit and 
   distrust, aggression, destruction and revenge.
   
   Each age, when the dust of its own battles clears, tends to see 
   itself as standing at the threshold of a new era in which peace and 
   harmony will at last prevail. This appears to be particularly true 
   of our own time, with its high ideals and great expectations aroused 
   by dramatic shifts in international relations. It would be 
   ingenuous, however, to think that a package solution to the tensions 
   inherent in human coexistence can be devised as easily as a solution 
   to a problem in data management. To cherish the dream that we have 
   arrived at the brink of a new world order in which all conflict, in 
   obedience to our good intentions, will be relegated to the past is 
   to lose sight of the grim obstinacy of those deep dark drives that 
   stir in the human heart: the defilements of greed, hatred and 
   delusion. It is these drives that have brought us into this world of 
   strife and suffering, and it is these same drives that keep the 
   wheel of history turning, erupting periodically in orgies of 
   senseless violence.
   
   Like any other stream, the stream of mundane existence inevitably 
   flows in the direction of least resistance: downwards. The task the 
   Buddha sets before us is not the impossible one of reversing the 
   direction of the flow, but the feasible one of crossing the stream, 
   of arriving safely at the far shore where we will be free from the 
   dangers that beset us as we are swept along by the stream. To cross 
   the stream requires a struggle, not against the current itself, but 
   against the forces that carry us down the current, a struggle 
   against the defilements lodged in the depths of our own minds.
   
   Though violence, either overt or subtle, may hold sway over the 
   world in which we are afloat, the Buddha's path to freedom requires 
   of us that we make a total break with prevailing norms. Thus one of 
   the essential steps in our endeavor to reach the abode of safety is 
   to "lay down the rod," to put away violence, aggression and 
   harmfulness towards all living beings. In the Buddha's teaching the 
   "laying down of the rod" is not merely an ethical principle, a 
   prescription for right action. It is a comprehensive strategy of 
   self-training that spans all stages of the Buddhist path, enabling 
   us to subdue our inclinations towards ill will, animosity and 
   cruelty.
   
   The key to developing a mind of harmlessness is found in the ancient 
   maxim stated in the Dhammapada: "Putting oneself in the place of 
   another, one should not slay or incite others to slay." The reason 
   we should avoid harming others is because all living beings, in 
   their innermost nature, share the same essential concern for their 
   own well being and happiness When we look into our own minds, we can 
   immediately see with intuitive certainty that the fundamental desire 
   at the root of our being is the desire to be well and happy, to be 
   free from all harm, danger and distress. We see at once that we wish 
   to live, not to die; that we wish to be happy, not to suffer; that 
   we wish to pursue our goals freely, without hindrance and 
   obstruction by others.
   
   When we see that this wish for well being and happiness is the most 
   basic desire at the root of our own being, by a simple imaginative 
   projection we can then recognize, again with intuitive certainty, 
   that the same fundamental desire animates the minds of all other 
   living beings as well. Just as we wish to be well, so every other 
   being wishes to be well; just as we wish to be happy, so every other 
   being wishes to be happy; just as we wish to pursue our goals 
   freely, so all other beings wish to pursue their goals freely, 
   without hindrance and obstruction.
   
   This fundamental identity of aim that we share with all other beings 
   has implications for each stage of the threefold Buddhist training 
   in morality, mental purification and wisdom. Since all other beings, 
   like ourselves, are intent on their welfare and happiness, by 
   putting ourselves in their place we can recognize the need to 
   regulate our conduct by principles of restraint that hold in check 
   all harmful bodily and verbal deeds. Because afflictive deeds 
   originate from the mind, from thoughts of animosity and cruelty, it 
   becomes necessary for us to purify our minds of these taints through 
   the practice of concentration, developing as their specific 
   antidotes the "divine abodes" of lovingkindness and compassion. And 
   because all defiled thoughts tending towards harm for others arise 
   from roots lodged deep in the recesses of the mind, we need to 
   undertake the development of wisdom, which alone can extricate the 
   hidden roots of evil.
   
   Since the state of the world is a manifestation and reflection of 
   the minds of its inhabitants, the achievement of a permanent 
   universal peace would require nothing short of a radical and 
   widespread transformation in the minds of these inhabitants -- a 
   beautiful but unrealistic fantasy. What lies within the scope of 
   real possibility is the attainment of a lasting individual peace 
   within ourselves, a peace that comes with the fulfillment of the 
   Buddha's threefold training. This internal peace, however, will not 
   remain locked up in our hearts. Overflowing its source, it will 
   radiate outwards, exercising a gentle and uplifting influence upon 
   the lives of those who come within its range. As the old Indian 
   adage says, one can never make the earth safe for one's feet by 
   sweeping away all thorns and gravel, but if one wears a pair of 
   shoes one's feet will be comfortable everywhere. One can never be 
   free from enmity by eliminating all one's foes, but if one strikes 
   down one thing -- the thought of hate -- one will see no enemies 
   anywhere.

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