Last week, on a ‘rest break,’ I found myself making circuits of the garden of world peace. This is at the Tibetan Monastery of Samye Ling, 15 miles from Lockerbie in Scotland, UK. This time, I was staying at a B & B at the far end of the village of Eskdalemuir. Eskdalemuir is about two and a half miles from the monastery, and the walk takes you along the valley of the river Esk, in some very pretty border country. By late October, the autumn in Scotland was pretty much in force, and the leaves were turning. There has also been quite a bit of rain, and the Esk was still high.
My first glimpse of the Monastery was from a footpath topping an adjacent hill. The footpath runs parallel to the road, which runs past Samye Ling. From this vantage point you can see the golden roof of the temple. On sunny mornings, it gleams. A little closer, you can also see the brass point of the stupa, a domed commemorative monument to the dead. This monument sits at one corner of the Stupa Garden for World Peace.
I descended the last hill, crossed the road, and walked down the tree-lined path, into the garden. There’s a welcome notice at the start of the garden. This tells you a little of the founding philosophy of Kagyu Samye Ling; “dedicated to the development of unconditional kindness, compassion and forgiveness.” The next sentence reads “World peace begins with creating peaceful minds.” One is invited to make a circuit of the garden, and the stupa, in a clockwise direction. A little further on there is a painted white pole with a message that reads: “may peace prevail on Earth.”
A sentiment that seems at odds with the prevailing currents of the outside world.
On the current conflicts, I find myself with very little specific to say. But I remain convinced that murderous violence and bloodshed (predominantly male murderous violence and bloodshed) are fundamental human vices. Conceivably part of a more general ‘pathology of humankind.’ It seems obvious to me that such a vice cannot, or should not be indulged. That the extensive disarmament of the world is crucial for any humane future.
As ever, this seems a ‘tough sell.’ Certainly hopelessly naive or unrealistic. But it remains a dream.
Vices tend to be pernicious. War and armed conflict demean all combatants, oppressed and oppressors alike. This is one key theme of Ursula Le Guin’s novel The Word for World is Forest. In this novella, the invading humans get kicked off an idyllic forest world inhabited by the previously peaceful Athsheans. The leader of the insurgency, an Athshean named Selver, confronts a Captain Davidson, who symbolises the worst of male, colonial, human violence. Davidson has been responsible for the murder, oppression and enslavement of the ‘creechies,’ the Terran slur for the indigenous people.
During the final confrontation Selver says the following to Davidson: “You gave me a gift, the killing of one’s kind, murder.” (Le Guin, 1972/2014). Selver does not use this ‘gift’ to destroy Davidson, instead exiling him. But he recognises that the violence of the Terrans has forever changed Athshean culture:
“Sometimes a god comes,” Selver said. “he brings a new way to do a thing, or a new thing to be done. A new kind of singing, or a new kind of death…. When he has done this, it is done…. There is no use pretending, now, that we do not know how to kill one another.” (Le Guin, 1972/2014, p. 127).
Ken Macleod, in his introduction to the Gollancz edition of Word for World, suggests that this reflects a key truth of violent conflict:
That oppression corrupts the oppressors is well enough known. That resistance to oppression can profoundly change those resisting, and for the worse, is less widely recognised— particularly among those who give that resistance their sympathy and solidarity. The ennobling part of resistance—of standing up, of fighting back, of driving the invader from the homeland—is seen and celebrated. The corrupting aspect— the hardening of the heart, the acceptance of casualty and atrocity, the replacement of the moral calculus with a cold-eyed calculation of advantage, of revenge and reprisal—is put out of mind, and sometimes for the best of reasons. That too is part of the damage done. (Ken MacLeod, Introduction to Le Guin 1972/2014, p. 3)
Personally, I find myself leaning towards the pacifism of my late childhood and adolescence. That was before I learned/was taught that such pacifism was laughable or ‘unrealistic.’ But I find the prospect of endless violent conflict for the rest of human history pretty hellish. There have to be people pushing for nonviolence, disarmament, and peace. That is where I stand: my conscience demands nothing less.
…And the band plays on and on and on
My holiday was marked by another event: the publication of a new report on the state of climate breakdown. This paper begins: “Life on planet Earth is under siege. We are now in an uncharted territory.” In the conclusion, the study’s authors state that:
As scientists, we are increasingly being asked to tell the public the truth about the crises we face in simple and direct terms. The truth is that we are shocked by the ferocity of the extreme weather events in 2023. We are afraid of the uncharted territory that we have now entered. (Ripple et al., 2023.)
The body of the paper includes a listing of climate-related disasters since November 2022. The listing is already outdated. The latter end of my holiday saw Storm Ciarán hit Europe. Storm Ciarán saw widespread flooding in England: many of the fields I passed on the way home were waterlogged, and the Tyne river near Newcastle was the highest that I’ve ever seen. The BBC reported that “countless homes around the country have been severely damaged.” The house of Carl Walker from St. Helier was struck by golf-ball sized hailstones. He reported that “The noise of the wind was just incredible and quite frightening. It was like a scene from a disaster movie.” Thousands were left without water in Surrey. However, the damage was worse in Europe. At least 15 people drowned across Europe as a result of the storm.
On the 2nd November, the Guardian quoted the veteran NASA climate scientist James Hansen as saying: “We are beginning to suffer the effect of our Faustian bargain. That is why the rate of global warming is accelerating.” Another report quoted in the same article found that “that the carbon budget to limit the world to 1.5C of heating is now nearly exhausted due to the continued burning of fossil fuels and deforestation.” This echoes what Bill McGuire and others have been saying for some time: that the hope of limiting the world to 1.5° C is effectively dead. This seems confirmed by the Ripple et al. paper, who stated that “2023 has already seen 38 days with global average temperatures above 1.5°C by 12 September—more than any other year—and the total may continue to rise.” (Ripple et al., 2023).
The possibility of change
I’ve heard a lot, in the last few weeks, about the complexities of history and conflict. How murderous violence can be understood because of intolerable situations. Why specific, often dire situations trigger never-ending and irresolvable conflict. My concern is that these complexities are distractions from what remains a relatively simple choice. That choice is to decide not to. To refuse to kill. That choice can be made by individuals, groups or whole societies.
One obvious retort is that I’m making this claim from a privileged, perhaps ignorant position. And this is perfectly true. I don’t live in a situation of perpetual fear, persecution and threat. I haven't been tortured. I haven’t seen family members murdered. I haven’t lost my children. I haven’t endured a terror attack. I haven’t seen my home town bombed out of existence. I have not lived in fear of imminent execution. I can’t know what that does to the mind. I can’t possibly understand the tough choices that must be made on a daily, hourly, momentary basis.
Nonetheless the choice remains the same for everyone; the choice between violence, killing and destruction or the choice of refusal. If we do not believe in this choice, then we’re surely slaves to violence, fury, fear and killing. Prisoners of history.
I’d refer here to a salient, Buddhist thought:
Hatred will not cease by hatred, but by love alone. This is the ancient law.
Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without.
All fear violence, all are afraid of death.
Seeing the similarity to oneself, one should not use violence or have it used. Source.
A inadequate statement, perhaps. But it seems true to me.
War is abhorrent to me. So is wholesale ecocide. I’m personally ashamed of being the member of a species (and sex) that seems prone to fits of murderous rage. I have similar thoughts about omnicide. However, I’ve not lost sight of the tremendous capacity that humans also have for kindness and compassion.
Opposing violence, hatred, murder and war might seem futile preoccupations in a heavily-armed, war-torn world. The same could be said about opposing the dreadful geopolitical forces that drive omnicide. But hope remains while there exist people willing to work on their minds, to work for peace and less destructive ways of life.
I think the choice, for every one of us, is where to put our energy, focus and time. Are we going to spend time on hatred, anger and revenge? Or on compassion and kindness?
The clock is ticking, and the same choice confronts us, every moment of every day.
References
Le Guin, U. (1972/2014). The World for World Is Forest. Gollancz.
Ripple, W. J., Wolf, C., Gregg, J. W., Johan Rockström, Newsome, T. M., Law, B. E., Marques, L., Lenton, T. M., Xu, C., Huq, S., Simons, L. A., & Anthony, D. (2023). The 2023 state of the climate report: Entering uncharted territory. BioScience. https://doi.org/10.1093/biosci/biad080