Non-violence – a study guide based on early Buddhist teachings takes the reader through Buddha’s original philosophy about non-violence as described in the Pāli-canon: The earliest extant canon of the Buddha’s teachings. The Buddha continuously describes his sense of dismay at the violence and conflict in the world, together with his important discovery: that the only escape from violence is to remove the causes of violence from your own heart. To remove these causes, you first have to restrain yourself from engaging in violence on the external level. That helps create the proper karmic context—more peaceful and honest—for extracting the causes of violence and conflict on the internal level. In other words, you have to stop engaging in violence before you can isolate and uproot the emotions and thoughts that would make you want to engage in violence to begin with. Non-violence also includes a number of stories one of them the story of King Brahmadatta and Prince Dīghāvu. From the book:
§11. Searching all directions
with your awareness,
you find no one dearer
than yourself.
In the same way, others
are thickly dear to themselves.
So you shouldn’t hurt others
if you love yourself. — Ud 5:1
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Non-violence
