The Practice of Non-Violence and Not Killing

For a few months now I’ve been contemplating and focusing particularly on practising the first of the five precepts in Buddhism, and that is about non-violence and non-killing. The precepts in Buddhism are like a guide to improving your life and living well. Naturally I’m not violent at all, never have been, but non-killing actually requires a lot of mindfulness, more-so than we first think or realise.  Both violence and killing both have hatred, greed or unawareness at their root but the application towards them in practice is quite interesting. In Buddhism the Noble Eightfold Path, which leads to the cessation of our suffering, can be grouped into 3 main categories of morality (sila), wisdom (panna), and concentration (samadhi).  So morality is one of the cornerstones to Buddhism practice, but regardless of Buddhism leading a moral and virtuous life is something that is core to the human experience and can be found in all kinds of spiritual practices across the world.  While we may start meditation and not be leading a virtuous or moral life, as some point our mindfulness will lead us to question and evaluate our actions and the decisions we are making.  As we progress we’ll start to notice that our development of mindfulness will become stunted if we don’t start acting morally.  The embodiment of our actions have to come into alignment with mindfulness for us to progress further.  It is this I want to talk about here through some interesting examples I’ve come across in the last few months.

Example No. 1

A few months ago I went to stay for a weekend retreat in a cave at the Santi Forest Monastery. You can read about that experience here.  On the first night it was very cold so I lit a fire and to add a nice feeling to the night I lit a couple of tea-light candles.  It wasn’t until the next morning I realised that several dozen large mosquitoes and been attracted to the light and had burnt themselves and perished in the heat of the candles.  Looking over at the fire I realised it must have attracted many more mosquitoes.  For that day I contemplated this situation.  If I light any candles or another fire on the 2nd night I would be knowingly killing many creatures but I could potentially be very cold, which would probably keep we awake all night. It was an interesting dilemma.  I meditated on it for a while and came to a decision.  I also spoke to the head monastic during the day just to get his views but he had the exact same thoughts as me.  It is interesting to contemplate this. What would you do? Would you light the fire because you needed to stay warm and sleep or would you not light the fire and stay awake all night in the cold?  This is an interesting question.

Example No. 2

Another example occurred 2 weeks ago.  My wife and I have been growing this little herb garden outside on our front porch.  The herbs get great sunlight and really grow very quickly.  The mint bush in particular was growing aggressively.  We delighted in our new garden and the freshness of the herbs we were using in our cooking.  It was great.  Before long however we started to notice some of the plants, especially the mint, were getting riddled with holes. At first we couldn’t find any reason but after some very close inspection we found it was literally covered in green caterpillars that were very well camouflaged.  If I was to spray the plant with insect killer they’d all die and I’d have nice healthy plants again.  This didn’t seem right however and went against the first precept of not killing.  I could cut off all the leaves that had caterpillars on them but I’d basically be cutting off all the branches and then I wouldn’t have any herbs to use.  What could I do?  How could I keep the plant but not kill any insects?  What would you do?

Killing vs Violence

Interestingly, when we first think about it, violence is something that seems easier to curb than killing.  Violence is an exaggerated action of anger towards another being or animal and these actions can stand out in our lives in contrast to our normal activities. Learning to curb that anger can take time and effort but we can do it.  Killing however seems like such a monumental act and we think we’d never do, however often it is the other way around. While on the surface killing seems like such gross act, typically killing is done quite calmly and coldly because we have simply been conditioned to not to be aware of it.  We simply regard other smaller creatures as meaningless or less important, or we evaluate them in relation to the level of fear we have towards them.  In the presence of this fear we kill senselessly because we’ve made a decision and we’ve justified it to ourselves. ”I’m scared of that, so I’ll just kill it” or “I don’t like spiders!  Splat!”  This is what I mean by killing is often something much harder to stop because the ideas that support it can be more ingrained.  I’ve never been violent but for a lot of my life I haven’t followed this first precept of not killing very well at all and have killed many little creatures. And while many of us aren’t violent in any way shape or form, we’ll still kill without a thought or regret because we just grew up that way and everyone around us does it.  At work recently there was a spider and someone was jumping around going “Oh kill it, kill it!”  By why?  We should stop to ask why.

Solving the Dilemma

So thinking about the two examples above what would you do?  If we are mindful and put the ego aspect of “What would I like?” out of the equation the answer is very simple and very clear.  In the cave, don’t light a fire.  So what if we are cold for a night, we aren’t going to die.  But if I do light a fire insects definitely will die.  We have thousands of nights in our lives, is one night of cold, restless sleep really going to be a problem?  We often go out on the town in cold weather in small skirts and sexy cloths and stay up all night because we want to look appealing and have a good time, so why not this night?  It is only our attachment to thought and self that creates the problem.  If we are attached to the idea “I want to be warm” and “I want a good night’s sleep” then we have a problem and unnecessarily create suffering for other beings.

In regards to the caterpillars and the mint plant how do we solve this? Using mindfulness and putting the ego aside the answer here is really simple too, the plant gets a really good trim.  I pulled out the scissors and trimmed off every branch that had some bite marks in it.  I then put these branches around the corner where the caterpillars could continue to feed and grow on them quite merrily.  The plant would be fine, it had a good root system and could grow back no problem.  If I was attached to them being “my herbs” and that I wanted them for “my dinner” then issues arise and other creatures suffer.

What is interesting is that each of these situations it is always the ego that traps us and creates suffering.  If we let go of our attachment to what we want and how we want life to be then all creatures win and no one suffers. What is most interesting is that if we are mindful there is a saddening of the heart in a subtle way that occurs if we kill.  We may not notice it at first, but will we realise it eventually. This saddening of the heart isn’t always so obvious. One way to make it noticeable is to actually make the effort to save the creatures or do what is right to not kill. This means practising and following this first precept. Repeat it a few times and be mindful of the results.  In doing this there is a natural rising of compassion and joy that uplifts the heart and makes us feel lighter.  If we see this a few times and compare it to how we feel if we kill we’ll see there is a marked difference in the results in creates within us.  Seeing this is enough to create a shift within us to change our ways.

How to Apply This

So applying this is quite simple but it does require mindfulness and an ability to notice and see the aspects of ego that we are attaching to in the moment.  When a bug wanders into our living room do we squash it or do we catch it and put it outside?  Squashing it is simple, quick and allows us to get back to our favourite TV show. Catching it requires effort yet afterwards we feel lighter and happier inside. The effort comes with a reward.  The key point here is that not-killing and non-violence requires we make a decision about our actions.  It requires that we are mindful of the emotion within us or the attachment to thought within us and that we decide not to act or we decide to act in a different way. In the moment before violence or killing there these two distinct points of application; the application of mindfulness to the emotion or thought that arises and the application of Right Action.

So going back to my beginning comment, in Buddhism the cornerstone is the Noble Eightfold Path that can be  categorised into 3 main parts – wisdom, morality and samadhi.  We can see all three of these applied in some way to improve in this area of morality.  We apply concentration to be mindful and aware of our emotions and thoughts, we also apply wisdom to see the nature of ego in the moment and to know how to act accordingly,  and this results in an improvement in our actions and thus morality and virtue.

It is sometimes saddening to see the killing that happens in the world so senselessly, even in small ways.  Just 2 weekends ago my wife and I went camping and during the visit we came across this little boy who was maybe 4 years old.  He seemed to be such a cute lovely boy.  I was with my son and this boy pointed out to us this big lizard about the size of my forearm.  ”Wow I said, he is amazing” as I tried to show it to my son.  The little 4 year old boy turned to me excitedly and said “Shall we kill him?”  I was shocked.  It really stuck out in my mind.  Where did he learn this?  It seems as a society we too easily justify this killing and it becomes a simple norm and we never question it and so it gets ingrained in us at an early age.

So non-violence and not-killing requires us to be mindful of ourselves, our surroundings and the right of every creature to live in peace just like we wish to.  This requires us to let go of ourselves, our attachments to thought and our ego.  To make right decisions we have to evaluate things in this way; “If I didn’t care for how I feel or what I want, what is the best way to act here such that no-one gets hurt?”

Each day I catch the bus at the same spot.  On the ground near where I wait are some ants nests.  I’m constantly reminding myself to watch were I step.  I have to step somewhere but I think about this; an action made non-mindfully can kill many beings, an action made mindfully can save many beings.  It is in the simplicity of seeing things this way and acting this way that non-violence and not-killing are applied.

 If you have any questions or comments please feel free to add them below.