Self-Cultivation Violence and the Pattern:

Self-Cultivation

Violence and the Pattern: Comparing nonviolence to other ideals

Others may do violence to living things -- we will do no violence to living things." from the "Sutta on Purifying")

The value of non-violence in Buddhism can be seen as being based on non-violence of the soul as more important than non-violence of the body. Of course being non-violent physically may be an ideal, but what is more important is remaining in a state of emotional non-violence. Hatred is unbalancing, and violence of the body usually stems from hatred in the mind. The reason that Buddhism promotes non-violence is because it is an obvious outward sign of a balanced mind, and in striving towards such balance it is an obvious early rung on the ladder. This is partly because anyone who follows the Pattern will not be violent without purpose, and if that purpose should arise it will be part of the Pattern and therefore not based on human will.

Chu Hsi writes that "The sage is joyous because according to the nature of things before him he should be joyous, and he is angry because according to the nature of things before him he should be angry. Thus the joy and anger of the sage do not depend on his own mind but on things." This indicates a lack of attachment to personal desire and emotion and mental states, and a commitment to spontaneity in response to life. Violence that arises because it is a necessary response to the environment, one may extrapolate, would therefore be considered different from violence that arises through selfish anger or rage. The idea that the sage responds freely to happenings in the world is very different from the western misconception that Buddhists try to block out all emotion. Emotion, like violence, is not necessarily to be rejected -- but it is to be experienced and acted not as a thing attached to the self but as a thing attached to the Pattern of which the self partakes. Non-violence is hence linked directly to the idea of Nirvana, because it is an approach to a state where personal attachments do not bind one to the world.