Transcript Slide 1

When Compassion Trumps
Non-Violence: Mahayana
Codes of Conduct
for Bodhisattvas and Kings
Michael Zimmermann
Center for Buddhist Studies
University of Hamburg
The Five Precepts
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Non-killing, non-injury (ahimsa)
Avoiding theft and cheating
Avoiding sexual misconduct
Avoiding lying and other forms of
wrong speech
• Avoiding intoxicants
• Laying aside violence in respect of all
beings, both those which are still and those
which move, he should not kill a living
being, nor cause to kill, nor approve of
others killing. (Suttanipata 394)
• Abandoning the killing of living beings, he
abstains from this; with rod and weapon
laid aside, gentle, with sympathy, caring for
the welfare of all living beings… (Majjhima
Nikaya 1.345; cf. Digha Nikaya 1.4)
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Bodhisattvabhumi (Stages of the
bodhisattva)
... the bodhisattva may behold a robber or
thief engaged in committing a great many
deeds of immediate retribution, being about
to murder many hundreds of magnificent
living beings — auditors, independent
buddhas, and bodhisattvas---for the sake of
a few material goods. …
Seeing it, he forms this thought in his
mind: “If I take the life of this sentient
being, I myself may be reborn as one of
the creatures of hell. Better that I be reborn
a creature of hell than that this living being,
having committed a deed of immediate
retribution, should go straight to hell.”
With such an attitude the bodhisattva
ascertains that the thought is virtuous ...
and then, … takes the life of that living
being. There is no fault, but spread of
much merit.
A king has made use of the [abovementioned three] steps and prepared [his
armed forces] for battle. Even if he kills or
wounds the enemy warriors, not the smallest
blemish, not [a trace] of misfortune and no
[negative karmic] consequences fall his way.
Why not? Because he has performed his
tasks in an attitude of compassion and with
no sense of resignation. A king who protects
his subjects and offers his [life] and his
material possessions for his children, wives
and clan obtains immeasurable religious
merit.