The Suttas: How Literally Would We Take Them?

[Xangsamhua]

Plodding my way through the Majjhima Nikaya this morning, I came across this, in the Kakacupama Sutta (The Simile of the Saw):

If anyone gives those bhikkhunis a blow with his hand, with a stick, or with a knife in your presence, you should ... train thus: "My mind will be unaffected, and I shall utter no evil words; I shall abide compassionate for his welfare, with a mind of loving-kindness, without inner hate." (Sutta 21:6)

Now, in my experience, bhikkhunis are quite small (I'm thinking of Vietnamese ones) and if someone took to them with a knife my mind would definitely not be unaffected. I would not even think of standing by. I would not take this advice literally.

What really is the Buddha teaching here? Not to intervene? To intervene, but dispassionately? To disarm the attacker and then to be compassionate after he's secured? Or is this a case of "oriental hyperbole", a teaching device we associate with Jesus of Nazareth in the Sermon on the Mount (turn the other cheek, give away your shirt as well as your outer garment, etc) and with the suggestion that you pluck out your eye rather than use it sinfully (Matt 5:29)?

Edited August 9, 2009 by Xangsamhua

[garro]

I see what you mean. I try not to approach the suttas as being always literal. If it sound reasonable and fits in with what I know then I accept it; if it doesn't I put it on the back-burner with the thought that maybe one day it will make sense to me or maybe it never will.

[camerata]

If anyone gives those bhikkhunis a blow with his hand, with a stick, or with a knife in your presence, you should ... train thus: "My mind will be unaffected, and I shall utter no evil words; I shall abide compassionate for his welfare, with a mind of loving-kindness, without inner hate." (Sutta 21:6)

To me there is no indication that this is about intervention in an ongoing attack. I think the teaching is about equanimity and not taking revenge when you've witnessed some outrageous action or injustice. You've seen a monk assaulted and the idea is not to have any ill will against his attacker.

In other words, to give a modern example, we should be able to watch someone smash the Emerald Buddha to pieces and not feel ill will against them. Now, compare that ideal to the the mentally ill guy who smashed up the Erawan Brahma statue with a hammer and was beaten to death by street cleaners. They were never even prosecuted.

The question of how to deal with an ongoing attack against someone is a much thornier one.

[agent69]

What I have learnt is that if we hold off our emotion and then consider what that happened, we can learn to forgive. Everything that happened always has rataional explanation. The process usually leads to sympathy for the others, including the attackers.