Ahimsa and Buddhist Attitudes to Violence

Overview

Recall questions on the First Precept and ahimsa, intention, vegetarianism and right livelihood, military service and Buddhist justifications of violence, the Pali sources and the Lotus Sutra, and the 14th Dalai Lama and Bartholomeusz on war and non-violence.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

1. 1

   What does the First Precept commit a Buddhist to?

   Model answer

   To abstain from taking life. Buddhists understand it as covering all sentient beings, not only human ones, and read it positively as well: alongside not killing goes the cultivation of kindness and the protection of living things.

2. 2

   How does ahimsa relate to the First Precept?

   Model answer

   Ahimsa, non-harming, is the broader principle the precept expresses, and it was already current among the samana movements of the Buddha's time. Buddhism gives it a distinctive shape by making intention decisive, so that the moral weight of an act of harm depends on the state of mind behind it as well as on the damage done.

3. 3

   Why does intention matter so much in judging harm?

   Model answer

   Because karma in Buddhist teaching is intentional action. Accidentally treading on an insect and deliberately killing one are not the same act morally, though both involve a death. This is also why Buddhists weigh premeditation, the effort involved and the being harmed when assessing a breach.

4. 4

   Are Buddhists required to be vegetarian?

   Model answer

   Not universally, and the tradition is genuinely divided. Early monastic rules allowed alms food including meat provided the animal was not killed for the monk, and the texts record the Buddha refusing a demand to make vegetarianism compulsory. East Asian Mahayana, drawing on sutras that condemn meat-eating outright, has made vegetarianism the monastic norm; Tibetan and much Theravada practice has not, partly for reasons of geography and diet.

5. 5

   How do Buddhists argue for vegetarianism from ahimsa?

   Model answer

   That buying meat creates the demand that causes the killing, however indirectly; that compassion extended to all beings sits badly with eating them; and that the modern meat industry bears no resemblance to the alms bowl the early rule was written for. Buddhists who disagree stress the intention rule, the duty of a monastic to accept what is offered, and in some regions the absence of alternatives.

6. 6

   How does ahimsa shape choices about work?

   Model answer

   Through right livelihood. Trades in weapons, in living beings, in meat, in intoxicants and in poisons are traditionally ruled out, and modern Buddhists extend the reasoning to work in arms manufacture, factory farming, exploitative labour and environmentally destructive industry. The principle is that one should not earn a living from harm, even at a distance.

Other ways to work this

The same content, four other ways.

What is inside Levo

Six ways to work the same material.