This
is the fourth chapter of my booklet Kshanti, originally given as part
of a series of talks at the London Buddhist Centre in 1997
Tolerance
is not always seen as a virtue. Some of the connotations of the term
tolerance are not very pleasant. For instance, to tolerate can mean
to put up with something in a rather grudging or resentful manner or
tolerance can be associated with weakness, an inability to stand your
ground and assert yourself. I have heard tolerance defined as
supercilious condescension. And tolerance is often thought to mean
agreement. Tolerance is not always seen as a virtue and even when it
is seen as a virtue it is often misunderstood.
From
a Buddhist perspective, tolerance is extremely important and it has
been a striking feature of Buddhism down the twenty five centuries of
its history. Tolerance is the acceptance that other people hold
different views from ourselves. Tolerance is the willingness to allow
others to be different in their views and actions. Above all
tolerance is the absolute avoidance of using power, violence or
coercion to force other people to think and believe as we do.
Tolerance is an attitude of loving kindness (metta) towards those who
hold views which are different from ours and even towards those who
hold views which are repugnant to us.
Intolerance
on the other hand is the willingness to use and the use of force,
violence and coercion to make other people behave as we want them to
and hold the views we want them to hold. There is also the
intolerance that doesn't want to force others to change but simply
wants to exterminate or exile them for being different, There have
been many atrocious examples of intolerance in the religious and
political history of the world. The systematic extermination of the
French Cathars by the Catholic church, the systematic extermination
of Jews by the Nazis, the inhuman treatment of black and coloured
people under the South African apartheid system. And it continues
today. I read earlier in the year about the case of a man in Kuwait
who had converted from Islam to Christianity. Apparently there was
the distinct possibility that the courts could single him out as
someone who could be killed with impunity by any Muslim, because his
apostasy was seen as such an insult to Islam. There is also the case
of the fatwa against Salman Rushdie. There was the blasphemy trial
against the editor and publishers of Gay News in 1977 which resulted
in convictions. And of course the continuous warfare in the world is
a sad testimony to the intolerance that exists between peoples of
different national religious and ethnic backgrounds.
Tolerance
is not about agreement or being vague about differences and
disagreements. Tolerance is maintaining metta (loving kindness)
towards those who hold views which are different from ours and which
are even repugnant to us. Metta is the basic Buddhist attitude and
tolerance is the application of that basic attitude to the area of
difference and disagreement with others. Tolerance is the art of
disagreement. Art implies both skill and creativity. It also implies
imagination. Tolerance is the application of skill, imagination and
creativity to the areas of difference and disagreement. This of
course takes time. As with any art or skill the art of disagreement
takes time to learn.
There
are many areas of difference and disagreement between people. There
are different religious and political beliefs, different views about
art, philosophy, economics, ecology and so on. There are differences
of lifestyle, cultural differences, different sexual preferences.
There are differences of gender, race, colour, nationality and
language. There are differences of personality and temperament,
different individual strengths and weaknesses, There are different
ways of dressing, different colour preferences, different likes and
dislikes. Wherever we look there is difference; a rich, abundant
profusion of difference. And this is what causes a lot of trouble in
the world and between individuals, this fact of difference. Because
our attitude to this fact of difference leads to disagreement and not
enough is understood about the art of disagreement.
How
do we practise tolerance without being weak, vague or negatively
condescending. It will be argued that we surely cannot be tolerant of
those who preach violence and prejudice. Fascists, racists and
extremists of all sorts; are we to be tolerant of them? Being
intolerant means using force, violence and coercion to make others
change, therefore if we practise intolerance towards those whose
views we find despicable, we will be joining them, descending to
their level and in that way giving them a victory.
As
the Dhammapada says,
“Not
by hatred are hatreds ever pacified. They are pacified by love. This
is the eternal law.” (1)
The
truly Buddhist attitude towards those who hold repugnant views is one
of compassion, because they live in a hell realm.
This
experience is very graphically illustrated by Brian Keenan in his
account of his captivity in the Lebanon. Here he is describing an
incident involving one of his captors whose name is Said.
“
Suddenly the dreaming silence was
shattered. Said was weeping great shuddering sobs. This was a
different kind of weeping from the automatic religious melancholia of
his prayers. He walked around the room crying, the whole room seemed
to fill up with his anguish. I felt, as I never had before, great
pity for this man and felt if I could I would reach out and touch
him. I knew instinctively some of the pain and loss and longing that
he suddenly found himself overwhelmed by.
The
weeping continued. Said became fleshy and human for me. Here was a
man truly stressed. His tears now wrenched a great wellspring of
compassion from me. I wanted to nurse and console him. I felt no
anger and that defensive laughter which had before cocooned me was no
longer in me. …………. I felt my own tears. I was transformed
with a deep and helpless love for him. I had become what he was
calling out for.
I
remained watching. There was something unbearably beautiful about it.
At once terrified and intrigued, my loathing for this man began to
fall from me. I no longer thought of him as nothing and felt guilty
for having dismissed him so completely. Said's violence against us
was a symptom of his need for us.” (2)
If
we could all access this level of compassion and sympathy for our
common humanity there would be far more reaching out to others and
the world would indeed be a far happier place.
As
Buddhists we try to be tolerant and have an attitude of metta and
compassion towards others but that does not mean that we believe
nobody should ever be restrained against their will. Of course it is
necessary to restrain people forcefully sometimes, so that others can
live in peace and safety. The principle involved here is the
principle of the power mode being used in the service of the love
mode. As Sangharakshita puts it,
“It will not, of course, be
possible for even the most faithful observer of the First Precept to
operate, all at once, in terms of the love mode, eschewing the power
mode completely. We live in a world dominated by the power mode. The
love mode comes into operation only in the case of exceptional
individuals, and even they may not always find it possible, or even
desirable, to act in accordance with the love mode.
In
this connection two principles may be laid down. (a) Whenever one has
to operate in accordance with the power mode, the power mode must
always be subordinated to the love mode. A simple, everyday example
of such subordination is when the parent, out of love for the child,
forcibly restrains him from doing something that will harm him. (b)
Within the Spiritual Community it is impossible to act in accordance
with the power mode, for by its very nature as a voluntary
association of free individuals sharing certain common goals the
Spiritual Community is based on the love mode.” (3)
To
continue for a while looking at extreme cases, it could be asked of
myself or other Buddhists, would you not have taken up arms against
Hitler, surely National Socialism was an unadulterated evil. I
personally cannot give a straight yes or no answer to this sort of
speculative question. I can tell you that my ideals and principles
are the ideals and principles of the Buddha’s teaching as stated in
the Dhammapada –not by hatred are hatreds ever pacified - and as
laid down in the first precept- the undertaking not to harm living
beings-, but I cannot say definitely that I know how I would act in
any particular extreme situation. I will not know until I face the
test. Even then I could not promise to be consistent. We are always
changing and learning; how we act today may not be how we act
tomorrow, because we learn from experience. There is an example of
this in Primo Levi’s book "If not now, when?" The Jewish
partisans have travelled from Russia across Poland and into Germany.
The war is ended, but one of their number is shot and killed as they
pass through a German town. They return in the evening and take
revenge by attacking the town hall and killing several of the towns’
leaders. Next day, one of the Jewish fighters says that this is
exactly how the Germans had behaved and he does not want to sink to
that level of violence and vengeance again. By killing his enemies he
had realised that he did not want to kill his enemies.
It
is often in extreme or unusual circumstances that our perspective on
life changes and we experience some great insight or transformation
of character. Tolstoy expresses this through Prince Andrew in ‘War
and Peace’. He falls, wounded, on the battlefield and as he lies
there he is utterly changed by the sight of the sky:
“How
was it I did not see that lofty sky before? And how happy am I to
have found it at last. Yes! all is vanity, all is falsehood, except
that infinite sky. There is nothing, nothing, but that. But even it
does not exist, there is nothing but quiet and stillness.” (4)
I
do not know what response I would have in an extreme situation or
whether I would stand by my principles. I suspect none of us can tell
really.
I
wanted to talk about extreme situations because I have noticed that
people often raise this sort of objection to spiritual principles.
[What will happen to all the animals if everyone becomes vegetarian?
What will happen to the human race if everyone becomes celibate?]
However, I think there are many less extreme and more relevant day to
day situations in which we can apply the principle of tolerance and
the fact that we do not know how we would respond in an extreme
situation does not have to be a hindrance to us. The difficulty about
tolerance and disagreement seems to be that often disagreement is
interpreted as intolerance. So when a Buddhist says that he finds
some of the doctrines of Christianity or Islam repugnant and totally
disagrees with them, this is seen as intolerance. And of course
Buddhists should not be intolerant. So expressing strong disagreement
can be seen as going against the principles of Buddhism. However, you
could say that the opposite is the case and that it is our duty as
Buddhists clearly and distinctly to state our disagreement with
views, beliefs, doctrines or behaviours which we consider to be
harmful and an obstacle to the development of the individual.
For
example, according to the Brahmajala Sutta, which is the first Sutta
of the Pali Canon, belief in a personal god is a wrong view and
constitutes an obstacle to spiritual development. There is no god to
punish us or reward us. The notion that there is limits the need to
take personal responsibility and spiritual development requires that
we take responsibility for ourselves completely. The materialist view
is also attacked in the Brahmajala Sutta because it denies the
possibility of higher states of consciousness. There is more to life
than the material and physical. There is a spiritual dimension and
the current mass religion of consumerism and greed is a hindrance to
spiritual development.
We
do not have to agree with what others believe or how they behave. We
do not even have to accept, in the sense that acceptance implies
approval. We can reject views and beliefs that we do not find
acceptable or useful. We do need to make a distinction however
between people and the views that they hold. This is very difficult.
There tends to be an identification of persons and views but this is
wrong. We can acknowledge and experience our common humanity with
those whose views we disagree with. We can disagree with Christianity
without hating Christians. We can be repelled by aspects of Islam,
without hating Muslims. We can find the excesses of consumerism
distasteful, without hating those responsible.
According
to the teaching of the Buddha ( the Dharma), nobody is beyond
redemption and our attitude towards all should be one of metta and
helpfulness. The Bodhisattva does not reject those who go against the
Dharma. On the contrary, they are the ones who most need to be helped
and one way of helping is to point out that they are wrong and to
show them another perspective and other possibilities. To disagree
with someone may be the most helpful thing to do. I must confess that
it took me a long time to realise that it was possible to reject a
doctrine or belief without rejecting or despising those who adhered
to it. I was brought up as a Roman Catholic and subjected to a crude
indoctrination from an early age. In later years when I came to
understand what had been done to me I felt outraged and often reacted
against priests and nuns in quite colourful language. However, later
still I began to understand that they meant well and in fact I could
even see how I had benefited from their efforts. These days I would
probably feel more in common with Christian monastics than with
people who believe that money brings happiness. I would still totally
disagree with the doctrines of Christianity, with its notions of sin
and punishment and damnation. The point I am making here is that we
need to be able to love the individual whilst attacking the views
and doctrines. It is best to identify people as people, as
individuals, as human beings rather than in terms of their beliefs or
what they do. It is not that someone is a Christian or a Buddhist or
a Muslim, but rather that they are a human being who lives by certain
principles and holds certain beliefs. If we identify people solely in
terms of some group of other, we risk losing sight of their
individuality and even of their humanity.
The
art of disagreement is to make a distinction between the person, the
human being and their views. To do otherwise is to fix them and to
fix ourselves in a way that is not helpful. We are not our views. We
are not Buddhists. We are much more than that and eventually we will
realise that we are much more than that. That is when we will know
that the Dharma is a raft to ferry us across the sea of ignorance to
the shores of Wisdom. Wisdom itself, Enlightenment, Nirvana is
something vast and ineffable, to be experienced, not to be explained.
As Sangharakshita puts it in his commentary on the Heart Sutra ,
“if you want to develop - if your
goal is Perfect Wisdom well, you have to go beyond Buddhism. In
reality, you have to realise, there is no such thing as Buddhism.
Buddhism is only a raft to take you to the other shore; then it must
be abandoned. It is only a finger pointing to the moon.” “There
is nothing that hinders you in your search for reality so much as
that which is there to help you, namely religion. What should be a
means to an end is so easily taken for the end itself.” (5)
In
the same way then as we are not Buddhists, not just Buddhists, so
others are not just Christians or Muslims or materialists. There are
fathomless depths to human beings. There are vast potentialities in
all individuals, like unmined gold or diamonds, like hidden treasure
and we should try to remember this rather than just identify people
with the froth and fume of their views. This is the art of
disagreement, the art of tolerance.
So
far I have been speaking mainly in terms of tolerance towards those
whose views we disagree with or find repulsive. There is also
tolerance to be exercised towards those who are simply different from
us. Here tolerance has nothing to do with disagreement, but is simply
the practice of metta. We may not find it easy to co-exist with
people who are very different from us. We may not even like them. The
difference may be cultural or temperamental or even just in terms of
lifestyle. However, we need to go beyond our likes and dislikes and
relate to others on a more basic individual level. You do not have to
like someone in order to feel metta towards them. You can have a
consistent attitude of goodwill towards someone even if you do not
like them. It is easier if you do like them of course. Likes and
dislikes are irrelevancies in the spiritual life and we need to
strive to get beyond them to something more substantial. Often the
difficulty we experience with others who are different from us stems
from a tendency to make instant judgments or even to prejudge. So we
have certain fixed ideas about people who dress in a particular way,
or people of a particular nationality, or people of a particular skin
colour, or people of a particular age and we bring those ideas and
pre-judgments to our encounters, to stand between us and the other
individual. This is very common and often we do not even know that
we are doing it. The solution to this is to try to communicate with
individuals as individuals and to try to suspend our usual
preconceived ideas. The person in front of us is not young or old,
the person in front of us is not white or black, the person in front
of us is not Irish or English or Indian, the person in front of us is
unique, unrepeatable and therefore not what we think they are. They
are unique and therefore very interesting, if we take the trouble to
discover them. We too, of course, are unique and therefore very
interesting, if we take the trouble to discover ourselves. Tolerance,
whether it is towards those with whom we disagree on fundamental
principles or simply those who are different from us, is a matter of
seeing people as individual human beings and trying to relate to them
from a basis of goodwill.
There
is a story at the beginning of the Pali Canon, even before the Buddha
outlines all the possible wrong views, where he tells the disciples
how to relate to people who may say bad things about him or the Order
and also how to relate to those who say good things about him or the
Order. The story takes place on the road from Rajagaha to Nalanda.
The Buddha is going along the road with about five hundred disciples
and following along behind is a man called Suppiya, with his disciple
Brahmadatta. Now, Suppiya doesn't like the Buddha or his disciples
and he is making all sorts of disparaging remarks about the Buddha
and the Order. His disciple does not agree with him as it happens and
is defending the Buddha and praising him. When the Buddha and his
disciples stop to rest, Suppiya and Brahmadatta stop too and they
carry on their discussion. Later some of the Buddha’s disciples
tell the Buddha about the exchange that had taken place between
Suppiya and his disciple Brahmadatta and the Buddha says,
“Bhikkhus, if outsiders should
speak against me, or against the Dharma, or against the Sangha, you
should not on that account either bear malice, or suffer
heart-burning, or feel ill-will. If you, on that account should be
angry or hurt, that would stand in the way of your own self conquest.
If, when others speak against us, you feel angry at that, and
displeased, would you then be able to judge how far that speech of
theirs is well said or ill? ‘That would not be so, Sir.’
But
when outsiders speak in dispraise of me, or of the Dharma, or of the
Sangha, you should unravel what is false and point out what is wrong,
saying: "For this or that reason this is not the fact, that is
not so, such a thing is not found among us, is not in us." But
also, Bhikkhus, if outsiders should speak in praise of me, in praise
of the Dharma, in praise of the Sangha, you should not, on that
account, be filled with pleasure or gladness, or be lifted up in
heart. Were you to be so that also would stand in the way of your
self conquest. When outsiders speak in praise of me, or of the
Dharma, or of the Sangha, you should acknowledge what is right to be
the fact, saying: "For this or that reason this is the fact,
that is so, such a thing is found among us, is in us” (6)
The
Buddha is saying is that the important thing is the truth. If others
praise you or criticise you , your interest in it should be to see
whether it is true or not and to respond accordingly. This is another
perspective on the art of disagreement or the art of tolerance. We
need to be concerned to discover the truth and proclaim the truth.
Attack falsehood and wrong views and praise and encourage the truth
and right view wherever you see it. The truth is the essential thing.
The truth is the seed of Wisdom and the attitude of goodwill with
which we uphold it is the seed of Compassion. Our task is to nurture
the seeds of Wisdom and Compassion. We are not concerned to mete out
punishment or reward, but to encourage skilfulness in ourselves and
others. We are concerned to nurture and encourage whatever leads to
the development of higher states of consciousness and an
understanding of the mutually interpenetrating nature of human
consciousness. It may be some time before we are sufficiently clear
ourselves to be able to help other people to clarify their thinking.
We may need to spend some years discovering and clarifying our own
wrong views before we can be helpful to others who are the victims of
wrong views. But nevertheless, the are some basic truths which we can
know from our own experience such as ‘not by hatred are hatreds
ever pacified’ and these basic truths we can uphold.
I
mentioned earlier the need for us to have patience towards ourselves
and to forgive ourselves for our imperfections. We also need to
exercise tolerance towards ourselves. This does not mean that we
approve of our own unskilful behaviour. We need to disapprove of what
is unskilful in our behaviour or thoughts or speech. In other words
we can, as it were, disagree with ourselves. At the same time we need
to maintain feelings of metta towards ourselves, We can disapprove of
our own unskilfulness without having to undermine ourselves, or think
of ourselves as worthless or be angry with ourselves. This is what I
mean by being tolerant to ourselves. Sometimes people acknowledge
that they've done wrong and go on to completely negate themselves as
if there were nothing of value in themselves. That is intolerance.
Sometimes people acknowledge that they've done wrong and say
blithely, "Oh, that’s me, that’s the way I am, I can’t
help it." That is indulgence. The Buddhist attitude of metta
lies between these extremes of intolerance and indulgence. It is the
ability to acknowledge unskilfulness, while at the same time
maintaining a broader perspective on ourselves.
As
we progress on the spiritual path we may experience conflict within
ourselves. It is as if part of us wants to lead the spiritual life
and meditate and study and so on and another part of us doesn't want
to have anything to do with it, would rather go to the cinema, down
the pub, watch telly and so on. I know I experienced tremendous
conflict myself after I had been meditating for about two years. It
was as if there was a war going on inside me and it was tearing me
apart. This went on for about a year. The only way I found of dealing
with it was to identify as distinctly as possible the two sides to
the conflict, even name them and then get them into some sort of
dialogue. I carried out this dialogue in writing and with friends so
as to objectify it. This proved successful in the end and the
conflict abated. In order to progress I had to allow into
consciousness, aspects of myself which didn't seem to be on the
spiritual path. Paradoxically, when I did become more conscious in
this way, I was in fact more on the spiritual path than ever. It was
perhaps more a case of difference than disagreement. In other words,
even within our own psyche the may be different approaches to the
Dharma and we have to extend metta to them all, not try to destroy
some. We cannot progress spiritually by denying who we are.
Everything must be brought into consciousness and transformed by the
warmth of awareness and metta.
At
the beginning I said that tolerance has been a hallmark of Buddhism
throughout its history. Although there are many different schools of
Buddhism, there is not the same clear distinction between them as say
between different sects of Christianity. Often monks from different
schools have shared monasteries and revered each others teachers. The
Dalai Lama for instance belongs to the Gelug school of Tibetan
Buddhism but is revered by all Tibetan Buddhists. Here is a story
from the Tibetan tradition which illustrates very well the Buddhist
attitude of tolerance. The story is about Pakpa who was the leader of
the Sakya school of Tibetan Buddhism in the 13th century C. E. and
who is credited with having converted the Mongols. I will quote from
Tibetan Buddhism by Sangharakshita. Speaking about Pakpa, he says,
“
This celebrated Sakya leader was
the guru of the even more famous Kublai Khan, who at the time ruled
not only China, but also the whole of Central Asia and even parts of
the West. Kublai Khan was apparently very grateful for the spiritual
instruction and inspiration which Pakpa had given him, and very
devoted to the Sakya School. One day he proposed to Pakpa that he
should make a law compelling all the people of Tibet to give up the
other traditions and follow only the teaching of the Sakya School.
Such was Kublai Khan’s enthusiasm.
……………….Pakpa
……. dissuaded Kublai Khan from making such a law. Such a law, he
said, would not be in accordance with the Dharma. In effect Pakpa was
saying that the other Buddhists of Tibet, the non-Sakyapas, should be
free to follow whatever school they wished. There must be no
compulsion, no coercion. This is, in fact, the Buddhist tradition,
and it is very much the attitude of Tibetan Buddhists. They are very
devoted to their own form of Buddhism; they believe in it, and follow
it wholeheartedly. But at the same time they respect other
traditions. Rarely is there any attempt to coerce anybody into a
particular school. This is indeed the attitude of Buddhists
throughout the East. They are generally very tolerant, whether
towards other forms of Buddhism or other religions.” (7)
The
practice of tolerance, and of patience and forgiveness has to be
underpinned by a strong conviction of the value of these virtues.
That conviction grows in us to the extent that we are receptive to
the teaching and guidance of the great spiritual leaders of humanity.
Notes:
- Sangharakshita (translator), The Dhammapada, Windhorse 2001, p.14
- Brian Keenan, An Evil Cradling, Vintage, London 1993, p.223
- Sangharakshita, The Ten Pillars of Buddhism, Windhorse, Glasgow 1989,p.62
- Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace, Wordsworth Editions 1993, p.222
- Sangharakshita,Wisdom Beyond Words, Windhorse 1993,p.30
- Dialogues of the Buddha, trans. T.W. Rhys Davids, Pali Text Society 1973, p.2
- Sangharakshita, Tibetan Buddhism, Windhorse 1996, p.40
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