Matters of Life and Death
April 2004
Banner photo: ©SEKAI BUNKA PHOTO
Inner Transformation: Creating a Global Groundswell for Peace
In the opening years of the 21st century, the world has been convulsed by new threats and by divisive debate on how to respond, focused principally on political and military measures.
There is, however, another perspective, one that is often overlooked. Great global issues such as the questions of war and peace cannot be divorced from the reality of our daily lives. For it is there that each of us can initiate action, taking that first, immediate step toward breaking the chain reactions of violence that wrack our world.
Specifically, I want to stress the importance of the spirit of self-mastery rooted in an empathetic awareness of others. I consider this to be the essence of genuine civilization; whether on the micro or macro level, to lose sight of others is to become fundamentally desensitized to human feeling.
On the most elemental level, self requires the existence of other. A flat, featureless society where discomforting encounters with others can be avoided may appear free, but it is not. Our modern emphasis on efficiency and convenience can end up depriving us of an essential aspect of human experience--the inner conflict and growth that can be sparked by such encounters. It is by recognizing that which is other and external to ourselves that we are inspired to develop the self-mastery that brings our humanity to fruition. Losing sight of "the other" undermines our full experience of "self."
Eliminating the word "misery" from the human lexicon was the fervent wish of my mentor, Josei Toda. In September 1957, seven months before his death, he issued a call for the abolition of nuclear weapons.
Nuclear Abolition
In it, he condemned nuclear weapons as a threat to the collective right of humankind to exist, declaring his determination "to expose and remove the claws" that lie hidden in their depths. This striking phrase signifies the need to transform our inner lives. Toda was stressing the importance of confronting and eliminating the fundamental evil within us all, which Buddhism defines as the urge to bend others to our own will. In this sense, it is not something outside ourselves that must be de-clawed.
Fostering an acute awareness of the pain felt by others is a central concern of Buddhism. It is said that Shakyamuni's decision to seek the truth was motivated by his confrontation with the "four sufferings" of birth, aging, sickness and death. He was, of course, concerned with alleviating the direct impact on people's lives. But even more crucially, he wanted to transform the deep-rooted indifference, arrogance and discriminatory consciousness that prevent us from feeling others' pain. Thus the starting point for Buddhism is the insistence that real happiness can be experienced only when we resist the impulse to turn our eyes from the sufferings of others.
If we could learn to feel the wound and shock of others' pain as our own . . . I even believe that such awareness and sensitivity represents the single greatest deterrent to war.
Death is the suffering modern civilization seems most determined to forget, to treat as "someone else's problem." Indeed, humanity's collective turning away from personal confrontation with death has weakened all restraints against violence, resulting in the mass slaughter of two world wars and countless regional conflicts. This is the full meaning of Toda's call for the abolition of nuclear weapons, the demonic manifestation of a civilization that treats death as someone else's problem.
Just as there can be no misery that is strictly limited to others, happiness is not something we can hoard or keep to ourselves. We are faced with the challenge and opportunity to overcome our narrow egotism, to recognize ourselves in others as we sense others within us, to commit to the hard yet rewarding task of striving for happiness that is shared by all.
Peace is not some abstract concept far removed from our everyday lives. It is a matter of each of us planting and cultivating the seeds of peace in the depths of our being, throughout our lives. I am certain that herein lies the most reliable path to a better world.
The themes of this essay are explored in more detail in Mr. Ikeda's 2004 peace proposal.
