These claims are true on both sides. Every religion in the world has a long history of violence, although not one condones violence at its core.
So when does religion become violent? As Westerners, we eschew the unity of religion and government, because we have first-hand experience of the bloody mistakes that occur when politics and religion work together. But is political power really to blame for religion’s corruption, or is it some aspect of religion itself that allows for this degeneration? Or is it simply human nature? Is violence inherent in the Abrahamic faiths alone? No -- Christianity’s tumultuous history finds a surprising parallel in Buddhism.
BUDDHA VS. JESUS: THE WWF SHOWDOWN OF FAITH
A recent German philosopher claimed that sitz im Leiben, a person’s situation in life, colors their views of the world and how they solve problems. This seems to be true for most people, but there is a startling exception in the comparison of Buddha and Jesus. Siddharta Gautama, who later became the Buddha, was born to the wealthy warrior class of India four or five centuries before Jesus, who later became the Christ, was born to the middle class of Israel. Siddharta was kept in isolation until he contrived to leave the palace at age 29; Jesus was raised in society, in full view of all of the culture’s good and bad points. Siddharta, as a noble, received an extremely thorough education; Jesus received the best education his parents could afford, which was probably not much more than classes at the local synagogue and an apprenticeship to Joseph. Certainly their experiences and education colored their respective points of view, but it seems to have changed more the grammar of the message than the actual meaning.
For example, the Buddha preached that life is suffering (dukkha), and that desire of personal fulfillment (tanha) caused this suffering. In Israel, the Romans were taxing the Jews to the breaking point, and Jesus, as a common man, did not need to reiterate to his converts that life was hard; they only had to look around them. But in both religions, the question was essentially the same; how do we clean up this painful mess we’re in? And, surprisingly, both Buddha and Jesus preached the same remedy; compassion.
Modern Buddhism does not strike a modern Westerner as necessarily compassionate. Certainly, it seems to be a peaceful enough system, but there is not much active outreach to help those in need. But this is a modern point of view. Both the Buddha and Jesus believed that, by improving yourself (reaching for enlightenment, opening yourself to God’s love), you would become a better person all around. You would become kinder, and other people, inspired by your example, would likewise strive to improve themselves. This is compassion at its most basic.
The Buddha’s teachings differ remarkably from Jesus’ in that they are plainly laid out. The Buddha said, clearly, that the path to enlightenment was the Eightfold Path -- right views, intent, speech, conduct, livelihood, effort, mindfulness, and concentration. If one follows the Eightfold Path, one cannot help but release personal, selfish desires, and then suffering will disappear. Jesus was much less analytical in his approach; he used the folk wisdom of the day, parables and phrases, to transmit a similar idea. For example, "Love your neighbor" is a similar concept to the Buddhist right mindfulness. Both of these revolutionary leaders wanted people to see their world differently; rather than in terms of "me, mine, I want it back," they pleaded with their cultures to turn the other cheek.
These two men are extremely similar in two respects; the Golden Rule, and social conduct. Buddha adopted the Hindu idea of karma as part of his explanation of human nature. However, an aspect of karmic law concerns this lifetime; if you treat someone badly, or do something wrong, then the universe will send this bad energy back to you. Buddha wanted the world to stop this cycle of bad karma by simply stepping out, by refusing to play the game. Jesus had a similar idea: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." When someone hurts us, we want to hurt them back; but would we enjoy that kind of treatment? Jesus, like Buddha, encouraged his followers to just stop playing the game.
Both Buddha and Jesus also abhorred social inequality. Buddha was revolutionary in refusing to observe the Hindu caste system. He did not believe that only Brahmins could become enlightened (especially since he himself was not a Brahmin). Likewise, Jesus accepted everyone into his company, not just those the Jewish Purity Codes decreed that he could accept. He ate and joked with prostitutes, tax collectors, and anyone else Jewish law declared was unclean. Both of these spiritual leaders not only preached compassion, they practiced it.1
Both of these religions are very peace-oriented. They preach acceptance of everyone -- your neighbor, your enemy, your servant of a lower class. So, where does violence creep in? Is it political intrigue of corrupt religious leaders? Is it doctrine or philosophy? Or is it simple human nature to blame something else?
POLITICS
From just the barest possible outline of religious history, an observer is struck by the amount of political manipulation introduced into the system. This does not, of course, happen within the founder’s lifetime, because the founder has a specific message to send; dealing with bureaucracy and hierarchy and economy directly obscures the point that the founder is trying to make. However, there is a certain point at which the religion must become mixed in politics, and this usually occurs when the new religion has gained so many followers that it can no longer be ignored.
For example, Constantine’s conversion to Christianity was not solely a spiritual or mystical conversion; the message of Jesus was spreading through the Mediterranean and obliterating the paganism that promised allegiance to the Emperor of Rome. The Roman Empire was founded on the concept of the emperor as a demigod, possessed of the power of Romulus (Rome’s mythological founder), if not possessed of his genetics.2 Constantine recognized, as the emperors before him did, that this new creed threatened the Roman Emperor’s spiritual authority, and therefore his political authority. While previous emperors persecuted the Christians (as well as the Jews, who held a similar view but were more easily contained in Jerusalem), Constantine seems to have realized the futility of trying to obliterate this new religion. At the same time, he needed to gain the full allegiance of the Christians or the power of Rome would be no more. So Constantine became the first political leader in the West to use divine Christian ordination as justification for his rule; in battle, he saw the sign of the Cross in the sky, declared his troops were destined to win because God said so, and defeated his opponent3 (one wonders if Christianity might not have been a dismal failure if he’d lost). This is the first well-recorded Western mixing of religion and politics, and it was for the benefit of the ruling political body.
As a Western audience, even if we know little about Constantine, we know how embroiled the church is in politics now. But what about the Buddhists? They seem to have no attachment to the material world, how could they possibly care about anything secular?
Buddhism went through a similar period in Southern India. The population in the first monastery was booming, and the Buddha’s teachings were gaining acceptance in the community (later, Buddhist ideals would be reabsorbed into Hinduism). When King Asoka rose to power, he was originally lord of a small territory, and felt the need to expand. By 250 BCE, he had conquered most of the Indian subcontinent, which until his unification had been several scattered kingdoms replete with different cultures and language barriers. Asoka wanted to unite his kingdom, and the only way to effectively do that within his lifetime was to unite the cultures ideologically -- and that meant religiously. Historians are unsure if Asoka converted to Buddhism as he conquered the subcontinent, or afterwards, but either way, he was almost solely responsible for the spread of Buddhism through Asia.4
Once religion initially mixed with politics, it was adopted as a method of control first by the aristocracy, then spread through the hoi polloi. The religion became associated with the dominant culture and, in the case of the Nara period in Japan, was adopted along with the political structure of the culture. The Japanese in the Nara period adopted Buddhism as a method of transmitting Chinese organization to the masses; meanwhile, the upper classes adopted not only Buddhism, but Chinese writing and political structure.5
Charlemagne spread Christianity in a similar manner in Europe. He inherited rule of the Franks from his father, Pepin the Short, who was also the first official Roman Emperor. The Bishop of Rome, in response to Muslim threats in the Eastern part of the church, wanted to reunite as much of the old Roman Empire as he could. Charlemagne inherited this responsibility and, with the Bishop of Rome’s blessing, he conquered most of continental Europe. His battles for territory were bloody and vicious, but once he conquered as much land as he could, Charlemagne promoted a revival of Greco-Roman education, which historians call the Carolingian Renaissance.6
Politics and culture seem, for most of human history, to be a powerful and inseparable unifying force. As such, it makes sense that political leaders would use the system for their own gain, and powerful, corrupt religious leaders would jump at the opportunity to increase the prestige and wealth of their organizations. But is there something inherent in religion that makes it so empowering? How can religions of peace like Christianity and Buddhism make room for war?
DOCTRINE
In Hippo, a movement against the secularization of the church sprang up around the time of Constantine. The argument occurred because Constantine chose a man named Caecilian to be a bishop over a man named Donatus. The people of North Africa who approved of Donatus were called Donatists, and eventually they broke with the church to practice their own brand of Christianity. They did not do so quietly, however, The Donatists protested other forms of Christianity as loudly and vehemently as possible, even going so far as to block merchants from entering a city. Shortly after their formation, some especially rebellious Donatists formed their own faction called the circumcellions. They believed martyrdom was the most honorable Christian death, and, since Christians were no longer being persecuted, they took to murdering the unjust and jumping off cliffs in mass suicides to prove their devotion to their beliefs.7
Augustine unwillingly inherited the position of Bishop of Hippo during this religious turmoil, and knew immediately that something must be done about these terrorists. The Church and the government had spent a great deal of time and resources trying to placate the circumcellions, but to no avail. In response, Augustine developed his doctrine of just war. War should be the last resort, he wrote, but for it to be considered "just" it must fulfill three conditions. The first of these is that war must not be for "territorial ambition, or the mere exercise of power. The second condition is that a just war must be waged by properly instituted authority. This seemed necessary in order not to leave the field open to personal vendettas. . . . Finally, the third rule -- and the most important for Augustine -- is that, even in the midst of violence that is a necessary part of war, the motive of love must be central" (Story of Christianity, 214). When this doctrine was adopted by the Council at Chalcedon, however, it was implemented as official Christian doctrine, and later used to justify all kinds of power and territory ambitions (including the Crusades). In fact, Justo L. Gonzalez further asserts that the second condition was later used to justify the powerful oppressing the powerless: "Actually, this would seem to be the case of the circumcellions, who according to Augustine did not have the right to wage war on the state, whereas the state had the right to wage war on them" (Story of Christianity, 214). And, despite Thomas Aquinas’ writings denying the doctrine, just war haunts all sects and denominations of Christianity today; it is, for example, used to justify abortion clinic bombings, the IRA. militants, and was the basis for the Christian Identity movement that inspired Timothy McVeigh to bomb the Oklahoma City Federal Building.8
But Buddhists could never have a similar doctrine, could they? In fact, they do. Mark Juergensmeyer, in his book Terror in the Mind of God, says:
| Some traditional Buddhist teachings have tried to identify exactly when the rule of nonviolence can be broken, accepting the notion that circum- stances may allow some people to be absolved from the accusations that they killed or attempted to do so. The teachings require that five condit- itions be satisfied in order to certify that an act of violence indeed took place: something living must have been killed; the killer must have known that it was alive; the killer must have intended to kill it; an actual act of killing must have taken place; and the person or animal attacked must, in fact, have died. (113) |
| [A]n old man’s argument "You may think I am just a common beggar, but how do you know I am not an enlightened saint?" immediately shifted his beating of a small child from the this-worldly frame of child abuse to the perfected vision of an enlightened being helping a child to burn off bad karma from a previous life (The Life of Buddhism, 154). |
Huston Smith warns, "Meditation yields a personal power that can be destructive if a person has not deliberately cultivated compassionate concern for others as the motive for arduous discipline" (The World’s Religions, 123). Although he wrote this to explain the split between Mahayana and Hinayana Buddhism, the phrase rings ominously true of the Zen monks who studied martial arts. Although, as seen above, the technique was first employed in the interest of self-defense (which is historically excusable), the militarism in Japanese Buddhism exploded into bloody civil war in the Ashikaga Period (1336-1600). The Tendai school of Buddhism, whose main monastery was on Mt. Hiei outside of the capital Kyoto, were becoming increasingly alarmed with an upstart sect of Buddhism, the Jodo Shinshu. In 1465, an army of Tendai monks descended on Kyoto and demolished the Shinshu temple, sending the Shinshu priests into flight. The result was over 200 years of religious strike between almost every school of Buddhism in Japan, which had all been forming armies of monks for centuries.10 The justification for this warfare was probably the notion that each sect was protecting the country from bad karma caused by the other "false sects".
The bloody Ashikaga Period finds a parallel in the Spanish Inquisition, which began a few years after the Tendai school sacked Kyoto. Although not always purely religious in nature, the Spanish Inquisition was always headed by priests, often Dominican, who at first (1478) dealt with the Marranos (Jews who converted to Christianity because of social pressure, not sincere belief), then eliminated the last vestiges of Islam (1502), and finally hounded anyone suspected of Protestantism (1520’s).11 The Spanish Inquisition officially sought to save souls by converting everyone to the "true path," and Augustine’s third rule of just war, loving intent, allowed them to keep up this pretense.
These doctrines all began as self-defense, allowing the followers of the respective religions to keep themselves safe; however, they were soon misused for personal gain. Is it human nature to use any source of power in such a manner? Is there an aspect of religion that allows us to manipulate it for our own selfish ends?
SCAPEGOAT
Sigmund Freud developed a dualistic psychological theory in which all human life is driven by two supreme motivations -- Eros, his term for the will to live, and Thanatos, the will to die or kill.12 For Freud, conscious social living came at the cost of masochism; "In this somber view, human ethical activity is fundamentally pathological." (Anatomy of the Sacred, 245).
Certainly not everyone beats themselves for each minor mistake but, as social creatures, humans are aware of how their actions are perceived -- people who are unaware of or refuse to acknowledge their mistakes are sociopaths or psychopaths. In a climate of frantic, fast-paced living, we may perceive that our actions meet constant disapproval. This is often the case in larger, less intimate societies, because we still seek reassurance from those we encounter, but we know fewer and fewer of these people. This growing concern for self and self-validation leads to a feeling of contagion -- something is wrong within the group, and must be disposed of.13 The solution to this disease is ingenious -- the scapegoat. Dudley Young reaffirms this claim in Origins of the Sacred; "in such circumstances, instead of trying to discover the agent that introduced the pollution, our attention shifts to finding a suitable agent to carry it off" (231). To search for the original cause of the spiritual plague would be to lay further blame on the community as a whole, which would worsen the problem.
This led, of course, to a wide variety of sacrifice across the world, from the first fruits of harvest to the king. The tradition of a literal scapegoat first developed in ancient Israel. When individual confession and repentance failed, the Jews concluded that "[t]here is thus only one method of securing clearance, namely, to pronounce a comprehensive, blanket confession of sins and to saddle the comprehensive taint upon some person, animal, or object which will be forcibly expelled and thereby take it away" (Anatomy of the Sacred, 116).14
Judaism was, of course, the foundation for Christianity, and the scapegoat theme runs deep in the Christian tradition. Jesus died for our sins, not just his own, and by taking the load of the world’s guilt upon his shoulders, he cleansed all of us so that we could open ourselves up to God and feel worthy of His love. Even today, radical Christians feel that to be the community’s scapegoat is the highest honor. Mark Juergensmeyer writes, in Terror in the Mind of God, "A Lutheran pastor who was convicted of bombing abortion clinics was not a terrorist, he told me, since he did not enjoy violence for its own sake. He employed violence only for a purpose, and for that reason he described these events as ‘defensive actions’ on behalf of the ‘unborn’"(9). In his mind, this Lutheran took the weight of the sin of violence on himself to rid the community of a blacker taint.
Studying Buddhism, one does not at first find a similar scapegoat theory, but it did appear two or three centuries after Buddha’s death. Unlike Jesus, Buddha died quietly and happily at the ripe old age of 80, leaving behind an entire monastery that not only knew his teachings, but had spent a good deal of time practicing them. And, besides compassion, Buddha taught responsibility. Only through self-discipline can one eliminate self-centered desires and achieve nirvana.
However, a later division of Buddhism led to a theory similar to the Christ theory. As Huston Smith states, the Mahayanists broke from the Theravadas because they were concerned over the Theravada lack of compassion. If these enlightened beings all stay in nirvana, then do all the unenlightened, crude beings remain trapped on earth? How do those of us who are not enlightened know if we’re doing it right? Mahayanists believe that beings called bodhisattvas reach enlightenment, but, out of concern for the souls of the community, they choose to be reincarnated again and lead the community to enlightenment (this doctrine was abused in Sri Lanka and Thailand, where the king claimed to be a bodhisattva, and this authority gave him the right to expand his kingdom and force his culture upon smaller, weaker kingdoms).15 The bodhisattvas left paradise intentionally to return to this world of sin and relieve the suffering of others before they returned to heaven.
A different scapegoat theory developed in Tibet. Mark Juergensmeyer writes, "Rather than concentrating on the adverse effect that killing has on the killer’s moral purity, this teaching focuses on the one who is killed and the merit that comes after death" (114). Naturally, postmortem merit is only conferred to those who led good lives, but at the very worst, the soul will be reincarnated and have a new chance to burn off bad karma. The killer becomes a king of bodhisattva by taking the guilt of murder upon himself in order to relieve the victim of this life’s pain. Shoko Asahara, founder of the Japanese religious terrorist group Aum Shinrikyo, used this principle to justify the murder and maiming of over a hundred people when his followers released sarin gas into the Tokyo subway system in 1998.16
Throughout my research, I discovered more and more shocking evidence of the evils in the human spirit, but I blame both religion and politics less and less for the corruption in their respective spheres. Buddha and Jesus wanted to reform their own corrupt, complex societies to reach the root of human suffering and fix it. The problem seems to occur when the religion spreads to more and more people, and all of the complicated relationships (mediated by politics) are introduced into the system. A philosophy, being a thought of humans and adopted by other humans, is susceptible to human fallibility. We can only hope, through whatever moral doctrine we adopt (religious or otherwise), that we avoid any kind of narrow-mindedness that leads to violent confrontations.
NOTES:
1.)"Buddhism," pgs. 82 - 153, and "Christianity," pgs. 317 - 364 in Huston Smith’s The World’s Religions.
2.) "Rome," Encarta Encyclopedia ‘99.
3.) "Constantine," Encarta Encyclopedia ‘99.
4.) "The Development of Buddhism in India," pgs. 62 - 64, from Buddhism: A History.
5.) "The Development of Buddhism in Japan: The Ashikaga Period," pgs. 189 - 193.
6.) "Charlemagne," Encarta Encyclopedia ‘99.
7.) "The Schismatic Reaction: Donatism," pgs. 151 - 157 of Story of Christianity.
8.) "Soldiers for Christ," pgs. 19 - 36, in Terror in the Mind of God.
9.) "Zen Archery and Swordsmanship," pgs. 57 - 67, in Zen Culture.
10.) "Development of Buddhism in Japan," pgs. 211 - 213, Buddhism: A History.
11.) "Inquisition," Encarta Encyclopedia ‘99.
12.) Found in Anatomy of the Sacred, but full credit goes to Freud in Civilization and its Discontents.
13.) "Pollution and the Sacred," pgs. 178 - 184, Origins of the Sacred.
14.) Although I found this quote in Anatomy of the Sacred, full credit goes to Theodore Gaster’s Festivals of the Jewish New Year, which was quoted in the sourcebook.
15.) "Development of the Bodhisattva Concept," pgs. 50 - 52; "Development of Buddhism in Sri Lanka," pgs. 84 - 98; "Development of Buddhism in Southeast Asia: Thailand," pgs. 121 - 127. Buddhism: A History.
16.) "Armageddon in a Tokyo Subway," pgs. 102 - 116; Terror in the Mind of God.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
"Charlemagne," "Inquisition," and "Rome." Encarta Encyclopedia ‘99. CD-ROM. Microsoft, 1998.
French, Rebecca Redwood. "Buddhist Secular Law: Doctrines in Context." The Life of Buddhism. Ed. Frank E. Reynolds and Jason A. Carbine. Los Angeles: University of California, 2000.
Gonzalez, Justo L. "The Schismatic Reaction: Donatism" and "Augustine of Hippo." The Story of Christianity, Volume 1 - The Early Church to the Dawn of the Reformation. New York: HarperCollins, 1984.
Hoover, Thomas. Zen Culture. New York: Random House, 1977.
Juergensmeyer, Mark. Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence. Los Angeles: University of California, 2000.
Livingston, James C. Anatomy of the Sacred: An Introduction to Religion, Fourth Ed. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1998.
Reat, Noble Ross. Buddhism: A History. Berkeley: Asian Humanities, 1994.
Smith, Huston. "Buddhism" and "Christianity." The World’s Religions: Our Great Wisdom Traditions. New York: Harper Collins, 1991.
Young, Dudley. Origins of the Sacred: The Ecstasies of Love and War. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1991.