Laying Down the Rod

　　by

　　Bhikkhu Bodhi

　　© 1998

　　The textbooks of history come into our hands bound in decorative covers and set in crisp clear types. To the discerning reader, however, their glossy pages are stained with blood and wet with streams of tears. The story of man”s sojourn on this planet has generally not been a very pretty one. For sure, deeds of virtue and flashes of the sublime light up the tale like meteorites shooting across the night time sky. But the pageant of events that the records spell out for us unfolds according to a repeated pattern in which the dominant motifs are greed and ambition, deceit and distrust, aggression, destruction and revenge.

　　Each age, when the dust of its own battles clears, tends to see itself as standing at the threshold of a new era in which peace and harmony will at last prevail. This appears to be particularly true of our own time, with its high ideals and great expectations aroused by dramatic shifts in international relations. It would be ingenuous, however, to think that a package solution to the tensions inherent in human coexistence can be devised as easily as a solution to a problem in data management. To cherish the dream that we have arrived at the brink of a new world order in which all conflict, in obedience to our good intentions, will be relegated to the past is to lose sight of the grim obstinacy of those deep dark drives that stir in the human heart: the defilements of greed, hatred and delusion. It is these drives that have brought us into this world of strife and suffering, and it is these same drives that keep the wheel of history turning, erupting periodically in orgies of senseless violence.

　　Like any other stream, the stream of mundane existence inevitably flows in the direction of least resistance: downward. The task the Buddha sets before us is not the impossible one of reversing the direction of the flow, but the feasible one of crossing the stream, of arriving safely at the far shore where we will be free from the dangers that beset us as we are swept along by the stream. To cross the stream requires a struggle, not against the current itself, but against the forces that carry us down the current, a struggle against the defilements lodged in the depths of our own minds.

　　Though violence, either overt or subtle, may hold sway over the world in which we are afloat, the Buddha”s path to freedom requires of us that we make a total break with prevailing norms. Thus one of the essential steps in our endeavor to reach the abode of safety is to "lay down the rod," to put away violence, aggression and harmfulness toward all living beings. In the Buddha”s teaching the "laying down of the rod" is not merely an ethical principle, a prescription for right action. It is a comprehensive strategy of self-training that spans all stages of the Buddhist path, enabling us to subdue our inclinations toward ill will, animosity and cruelty.

　　The key to developing a mind of harmlessness is found in the ancient maxim stated in the Dhammapada: "Putting oneself in the place of another, one should not slay or incite others to slay." The reason we should avoid harming others is because all living beings, in their innermost nature, share the same essential concern for their own well being and happiness. When we look into our own minds, we can immediately see with intuitive certainty that the fundamental desire at the root of our being is the desire to be well and happy, to be free from all harm, danger and distress. We see at once that we wish to live, not to die; that we wish to be happy, not to suffer; that we wish to pursue our goals freely, without hindrance and obstruction by others.

　　When we see that this wish for well being and happiness is the most basic desire at the root of o…

《Laying Down the Rod》全文未完，請進入下頁繼續閱讀…