Let us create an arbitrary continuum with pacifism on one end and engagement on the other. In the West on the pacifist end we have the Old Testament commandment, “Thou shalt not kill.” Eastern religions teach to even avoid killing insects unnecessarily.
On the engagement end we have Krishna’s “commandment” to Arjuna in the Mahabharata to “engage” in warfare. “At the end of the long dialogue between spiritual master and student, Krishna tells Arjuna that sometimes it is necessary to resort to physical force. ‘If you do not fight in this just war, you will neglect your duty, harm your reputation and commit the sin of omission,’ he says. ‘Having regard to your duty, you should not hesitate, because for a warrior there is nothing greater than a just war.’”[i]
In modern times we have the example that occurred during World War II. “When the German pacifist and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer abandoned his nonviolent principles and attempted to assassinate Adolph Hitler in 1943, it was an act of great courage that, if successful, would have been praised around the world. It is the regret of history that he failed and was martyred for the cause.”[ii]
Somewhere in the middle of the continuum would be the nonviolent resistance of Henry David Thoreau, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King Jr. In post-apartheid South Africa there is the reconciliation movement of Nelson Mandela and Bishop Desmond Tutu.
The personal struggle of where one falls on this continuum continues to evolve as a central and fruitful dilemma of the Self-realization process. “In our postmodern world, we have begun to deconstruct the idea that spiritual experience and moral development always go hand in hand. Some contemporary philosophers such as Ken Wilber have even explicitly separated the states of spiritual experience from the stages of moral development. But whatever model we use, it is becoming more and more clear that how we interpret spiritual experience may in fact be much more important than the experience itself, more significant even than direct contact with ‘the numinous power of the sacred.’ As Suzuki wrote over a half-century ago, ‘I wish to foster in Zen priests the power to increasingly think about things independently. A satori [enlightenment] which lacks this element should be taken to the middle of the Pacific Ocean and sent straight to the bottom!’”[iii]
In other words, what Suzuki seems to be saying, is that a state of enlightenment should not preclude our participating (engaging) in the world, even if that engagement involves violence. It would be up to each of us to decide, as did Arjuna, Bonhoeffer, Thoreau, Gandhi, and Mandela, which circumstances would justify our action and what form that action would take.
[i] Phipps, Carter. “Is God a Pacifist?” What is Enlightenment? Lenox, Massachusetts, August/ October 2004, p. 67.
[ii] Ibid., p. 70.
[iii] Ibid.
