This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video Guided Meditation: Peaceful Awareness; Non-Violence (3 of 5) Bringing Peace into the World. It likely contains inaccuracies, especially with speaker attribution if there are multiple speakers.

Guided Meditation: Peaceful Awareness; Dharmette: Non-Violence (3 of 5) Bringing Peace into the World - Gil Fronsdal

The following talk was given by Gil Fronsdal at Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, CA on October 25, 2023. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Guided Meditation: Peaceful Awareness

Warm greetings from this dark, dawning morning in Redwood City. I'm happy to be here with all of you and to share this time together. I think I've based my adult life on the idea that Buddhist practice is a peacemaking practice. It uproots the impulses to violence and harm-making in ourselves, and it is a practice devoted towards bringing peace to this world in its own way, in a Buddhist way.

To sit now and meditate is, in fact, an act of peacemaking. Buddhism emphasizes that peacemaking begins with oneself—that the source of peace we can have some role in begins with ourselves. If we can't be peaceful, how can we expect others to do so? As we sit in meditation, the closer we get to ourselves, the more we have a chance to discover how to keep the peace. We learn how to stay in a mode of being where we do not pick up, do not get involved in, any kind of harm-making activity in our own mind. The deeper the sensitivity, the deeper our ability to be mindful, the more we pick up the subtleties of ways in which the mind operates that do, in fact, cause maybe subtle harm. Subtle harm compounded over years and years, applied in so many different ways in our lives, can actually be a source of tremendous pain and harm.

Think of meditation as an exercise in finding peace, in being peaceful and non-harming, and that mindfulness is the representative state of attention—a way of attending and being aware in a peaceful way. As we do this meditation today, perhaps you can keep a dedication to having a peaceful way of recognizing what is happening to you in the present moment. Take refuge in the awareness, in the simplest knowing that knows in a way that contributes to the peace within. It doesn't contribute to further conflict, to further animosity, shame, discouragement, greed, or conceit. It doesn't encourage or feed into the mental states and activities which bring along subtle ways that undermine us, deflate us, harm us, or bring unnecessary despair, discomfort, or pain.

So, to assume a meditation posture. However you are going to sit, let it be a posture that allows you to be peaceful and to orient yourself around being peaceful. Either lower your gaze or close your eyes in such a way that you can begin monitoring yourself, tracking what is going on within you—in your mind, your thoughts, and in your reactions to what is happening. Sit quietly without contention with anything that's happening, without condemning anything, or without any greed for anything.

Allow yourself to be as you are, but in the middle of how you are, let there be knowing. A knowing which radiates a peaceful way of being. To know, to be aware, peacefully. A peacemaker in the middle of your life. Peaceful knowing. Even when there are thoughts and impulses which are not peaceful, let them be known peacefully.

In whatever ways that you're not peaceful, don't struggle with that or be opposed to it. Find that peaceful place within that knows it peacefully and radiates peacefulness outward. Let the example, the radiance, and the influence of peacefulness spread throughout your being with each moment of knowing the breath, your body, your feelings, and your thoughts. Take your time to stay close to a peaceful way of knowing. And if you can't find that, be as close to peace as you can.

Calm.

Below any tension you carry, any agitation, below any way in which your mind is outwardly directed into the world, the future, or the past—underneath it all, deep inside, can you find a place of peace, of calm? Maybe a place of being centered, and being in touch with this peaceful place within. To know what's happening to you as it's happening. To be in the middle of your ongoing present moment experience with an awareness that has a calming, peacemaking influence on whatever is going on for you.

And then, as we come to the end of the sitting now, after this period of meditation, find within you the place where there's the clearest feeling of peace, calm, and non-agitation. Is there some place in the body that you associate with this? And if you do, center yourself there as if that's who you are.

From there, imagine yourself gazing out upon the world. A world that in many ways is on fire with war and climate change; people suffering, dying, afraid, and struggling. Gaze upon it from whatever peaceful place you have, letting your inner peace and calm radiate outwards through the ways that you are afraid or dismayed, the ways that you are one of the suffering people.

Let whatever peacefulness you have—the kind of peace that we would wish on everyone—extend to others. Wish this for our world: May our world be peaceful. May the fevers of greed, hate, and delusion cool down for everyone. May the agitation of dismay and fear calm down, so everyone has the ability to tap into their best wisdom and love. From whatever well-being we have, wish others well:

May all beings be peaceful. May all beings be safe. May all beings be peaceful and happy. May all beings be free.

Thank you.

Dharmette: Non-Violence (3 of 5) Bringing Peace into the World

One of the most repeated teachings of the Buddha is that of living a life of non-harming, non-violence: Ahimsa¹. Sprinkled throughout the teachings are all kinds of little quotes in this regard. If we ask ourselves why the Buddha emphasized this, we could maybe get a clue in the way he described himself before he was awakened. There is a description where you get a sense of the Buddha's own dismay and challenge—the way he was troubled by the state of the world of his time. This is from a discourse called the Discourse on Being Violent. It is in a book that I've translated teachings for called The Buddha Before Buddhism: The Book of Eights². It is chapter 15. The Buddha states:

"Violence gives birth to fear. Just look at people and their quarrels. I will speak to you of my dismay and the way that I was shaken. Seeing people thrashing about like fish in little water, and seeing them feuding with each other, I became afraid. The world is completely without a core; everywhere things are changing. Wanting a place of my own, I saw nothing not already taken. I felt discontent at seeing only conflict to the very end. Then I saw an arrow here, hard to see, embedded in the heart. Pierced by this arrow, people dash about in all directions. When the arrow is pulled out, they don't run, and they don't sink."

The pathos of the Buddha's time before his awakening—how he looked around the world and was deeply moved and disturbed by it—is a very different contrast to the kind of idea that many of us have of who the Buddha was after he was awakened. Here the suggestion is that it was his seeing the violence in the world, the way people are fighting, and the way that they saw no end to the fighting, that motivated him to find an alternative way of living. He didn't see any solution or any place for him as a refuge in the world where he could be safe.

So he looked within, and lo and behold, he found what he called an arrow that is not inherent to the heart, but can pierce the heart, causing a lot of pain. Because it's not inherent to it, because it's not a permanent part of the heart, that arrow can be taken out—and that's what he did. As he did that, he realized one doesn't run about and one doesn't sink; one is not agitated, nor does one give up and just collapse.

I'm very touched by this description. You see the humanity of the Buddha, compared to some of the descriptions of his enlightenment where it seems almost disconnected from the world or very much focused entirely on his own personal suffering. This description asks, "What about the world around us?" The Buddha then emphasized, for the next 40 to 45 years of his teaching career, the importance of non-violence, the importance of discovering the roots of violence in oneself, and pulling out that arrow. It became a common theme, one way or the other, of what he taught.

Part of the reason for that was, I think, that there was plenty of violence in his times. There are descriptions of the wars and the fighting that went on around him, the cruelty of rulers, bandits, and robbers; it was a dangerous time. The sad thing is that this world has been dangerous ever since. I don't think that, given the history of humanity, we can expect that the dangers and horrors of it are going to stop. They'll probably continue. But there have to be alternatives. There have to be some people who find that arrow embedded in the heart, so that we're not motivated by our reactions to a pain that doesn't have to be there.

For not a few people, their anger, their despair, their dismay, their fear—the way that we run around and act impulsively, and maybe act violently either with our words, our deeds, or even our thoughts—are born from trying to struggle with our own pain. Not knowing how to be with our own pain, feeling the suffering of the world and having that be like salt on our own wound, evokes the pain of this arrow that we have within. Then the response to the world is not simply trying to stop what's in the world from being terrible, but reacting to the world to try to assuage this pain in our own heart by looking in the wrong direction.

In Buddhist practice, the idea is to turn oneself inside out, go in, find the arrow, and then, in turning oneself inside out, step into the world with that peace—with that capacity of being a non-reactive presence for this world. Does that mean that we become passive? No. The Buddha stepped forward into the world, and sometimes moved towards where the violence was.

The representative example of this in the suttas³ is the story of a mass murderer named Angulimala⁴, who was a bandit that robbed and killed people. He was apparently quite vicious and killed many, many people, and the public was quite afraid of him. When the Buddha heard about it, he went into the jungle to find him. People tried to stop the Buddha and said, "It's too dangerous, don't go there, you're an unarmed mendicant." But the Buddha went anyway. He was able to pacify the murderer and actually converted him to become a Buddhist monk.

This idea of going towards where the conflict is: firefighters go towards the fires, medics sometimes go towards the war—not to fight, but to help people. People who are deeply trained, deeply liberated, and who have pulled out the arrow from the heart, are people who then have the fearlessness to go towards conflict and towards violence.

Another representative example of the power of being peaceful is a story of King Ashoka⁵, one of the first rulers of a vast empire in India. He was initially a vicious conqueror with a large army going around conquering and killing. At one point, he was involved in a very large battle where thousands upon thousands of people died on the battlefield, even though he won. The day after the battle, he was walking across the battlefield looking at the carnage. Walking right through the middle of the battlefield was a Buddhist monk. That Buddhist monk had a demeanor and bearing which was so peaceful and calm—such a radical contrast to the carnage of the war—that it got the King's attention. The King asked him, "Who are you and what's going on here with you?" He explained that he was a Buddhist monk. "And what is it your teacher teaches?" The monk calmly said, "Hate is not overcome by hate; hate is overcome by love. This is the ancient teaching."

To have the demeanor of peace, to step into the battlefield after the fact, to have a presence that somehow influenced this person to be calm, and then to offer teachings that touched his heart—this King Ashoka then became known as a proponent of non-violence. He became the first seemingly righteous or just king of India. He created lots of shelters and hospices, fed the poor, created shelters for animals, and completely turned around how he ruled. It's supposed to have been a true story; there are lots of stories about King Ashoka being transformed from a vicious king to a non-violent king. Whether that story is fully accurate or not, I don't know, but it's a wonderful representative example.

Thich Nhat Hanh⁶ used a similar example to talk about the boat people who fled Vietnam in the 1970s and early 80s on very flimsy boats packed with people trying to get to the Philippines. There were storms in the middle of the ocean and big waves. Thich Nhat Hanh offered what is, for me, a powerful teaching: that if one person could stay calm on the boat, the boat would stay calm enough so it wouldn't tip over in the big waves, and everyone would be safe. One person to be calm. One person to be peaceful.

One of the fallacies about pulling out one's own arrow and being peaceful is that it means avoiding taking care of the world and taking care of others. The Buddha was very adamant: "Don't sacrifice yourself." In order to take care of others, take care of yourself first so you can be an effective peacemaker in the world. A very challenging and provocative teaching of the Buddha is the one where he says, "Don't give up your own welfare for the sake of others' welfare, however great. Clearly know your own welfare and be intent on the highest good." This is not meant to imply "don't ignore other people," but rather to seek the highest good. Elsewhere he talks over and over again about living a life that is intent on the welfare of self and other—the welfare and happiness of everyone involved.

We want to look for examples of people who are doing this, to see how we can support that kind of activity instead of the activity of endless war, endless conflict, and endless ways in which we continue to evoke fear in people's hearts. Instead of the ways we keep driving that arrow deeper and deeper into people's hearts by continuing the cycles of conflict that go on and on. The more we feel deeply moved by violence in the world—whether it's the violence in Gaza and Israel, or Ukraine, or Syria; places in the world right now where thousands of people are being killed fighting in these conflicts with horrific ideas of what's happening—we must ask: Where are the peacemakers? Do we support them? Can we bring them to the forefront?

There's an organization in Israel called Standing Together where Palestinians and Jewish Israelis are working together to bring humanitarian aid to people who need it. This idea of working together and finding a common ground goes against what many, maybe the majority, of people are doing. But that example of people walking across the battlefield, the example of someone else who's helping—this is what we want to highlight and shine a light on in our world.

Can we be a person like that? Can we be a person who lives peacefully? There is a story of a king at the time of the Buddha who came to see the Buddha and made this comment about what he saw in the Buddha together with his monastics:

"Venerable sir, kings quarrel with kings, nobles with nobles, brahmins with brahmins, householders with householders. Mothers quarrel with children, children with mother, father with children, children with father. Brothers quarrel with brothers, brothers with sisters, sisters with brothers. Friends with friends. But here I see monastics living in concord, with mutual appreciation, without disputing, blending like milk and water, viewing each other with kindly eyes."

So there are people who live this way. May we shine the light and appreciate those people who are doing this. May we be that kind of person. May we feel that being a peacemaker—turning towards the violence in a peaceful way, bringing a peaceful influence—is a revolutionary act. May we be courageous. May we have faith in that. May we trust that, so that we can find an alternative to violence. Without an alternative to violence, do we want to live in such a world? Do we want to live in a world where our so-called peace is at the expense of other people's suffering, one way or the other?

Can we be an example of someone who has pulled out the arrow in our own heart, and then become a calm force, a peaceful influence into this world around us?

Thank you, and may you become a peacemaker in your world.