Enlightened Liberty

Vietnamese peace advocate and Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh uses the phrase “peace in every step” to describe his philosophy of activism. Similarly, another monk once said, “There is no way to peace. Peace is the way.”

The meaning of these men is clear. Their ultimate goal is peace and brotherhood among the citizens of the Earth. It can only be realized through the path of empathy. It cannot be achieved through violence, anger, or war.

Thich Nhat Hanh’s weapons are his pen and his voice. His arsenal consists of kind, peaceful words and actions. He never condemns anyone, even those who dropped firebombs on the villages of his homeland. He implores his listeners to think of people on the other side of the conflict as brothers and sisters. He fights against the poisonous dehumanization that always accompanies armed conflict.

During the Vietnam War, a community of monks received word that there was a group of civilians caught in a combat zone. The monks leapt into action. They did not rush in to save the civilians with guns, armor, napalm, or helicopters. Rather they walked in a line with a large Buddhist flag held in front of them. Upon seeing the flag and the robes of the monks, the soldiers refrained from firing. The monks surrounded the civilians and led them out of the danger zone. The operation was not without casualties, as stray bullets injured a number of monks. But in the end, the monks were successful in saving the civilians.

That is “peace in every step”. That is true compassion.

A Buddhist might explain the idea of “peace in every step” with the doctrine of karma. Anger is one of the three great poisons. When a person is angry, it generates negative karma which will cause even more negativity to enter the world. Peace, an object of beauty, cannot be the fruit of violent action.

A non-Buddhist might note that when we act angrily towards people they become defensive and hostile. When we begin to view others as our enemies we cause our views to become reality. Violence does not beget understanding.

We cannot force people to be peaceful. We cannot force people to be compassionate. The means and the ends are antithetical.

In light of these beliefs, I find it strange that many engaged Buddhists adhere to the political philosophy of socialism. Some have even run for office with various socialist-leaning Green Parties. As with all harmful actions, the reason behind this is ignorance. Libertarianism has a very small following, so most Buddhists probably have not had contact with its teachings. However, libertarianism’s critique of socialism is unanswerable and much in tune with the Buddhist worldview.

The problem with socialism is that it attempts to use force of arms to engineer utopia. When a person refuses to pay taxes it is not a group of Buddhist monks that go to his door, imploring him to give of his wealth to aid the suffering in society. Rather, a person who does not pay his taxes will find armed men at his door that will cart him away to prison and take his possessions away to auction.

When a Buddhist votes for socialism, when he attempts to carry out compassion through the offices of the state, he is not practicing “peace in every step”. He is encouraging brutality. In this way, the goals of well-meaning and peaceful men are thwarted.

In that the state must use coercion to stay in existence, in that the state’s very definition is “legitimate” coercion, the state is an inherently anti-Buddhist institution.

All of the state’s social programs fail the litmus test of “peace in every step”. If a person is harming himself with addictive, mind-altering substances, the state shackles him and takes him away from his family to spend decades in a prison cell. That is not the way of compassion, that is not the way of peace.

If more Buddhists were exposed to libertarianism, I feel certain that they would find much in common between the two philosophies. Libertarians teach the doctrine of “non-aggression”, namely that no one should use force against his brother except in self-defense. This is similar to the Buddhist doctrine of non-violence. Both are very different from the socialist doctrine of “equality at any price”.