Today I want to speak about violence. Buddhism and violence appear so completely opposed that it is painful to have to discuss violence within Buddhism. Yet refusing to hide what actually exists is necessary both for Buddhist study and for reform of the Jogye Order.
With the closure of Buddhist Focus approaching, we cannot avoid examining one source of the pressure that drove it there: actions called the “Walking Pilgrimage for Destroying Falsehood and Revealing Truth” and “Until the Day Falsehood Is Destroyed and Truth Revealed.” Monks and lay Buddhists gathered at Buddhist Focus and applied pressure, including verbal abuse and other forms of violence. I regard this as one reason the outlet was eventually forced to close.
A noble name does not transform violence
Judging by its name alone, such a pilgrimage sounds righteous and admirable. That is why we must explain clearly why I call it violence. Participants carried thoughts such as, “How dare they criticize former President Jaseung?” and “How dare they belittle the pilgrimage in which we took part as an endurance show? We must go and teach them a lesson.” If people gather with the wish to suppress and punish an opponent, the mind is violent regardless of the event’s title.
Violence is not simply the use of force against someone stronger. When a stronger person strikes and the victim fights back, that can be called resistance. Violence is characteristically power applied to a weaker person who cannot retaliate. That is why we recognize as violence the stronger beating the weaker or a crowd harassing a small target.
Ahimsa and compassion also turn toward the vulnerable
Anyone who follows the Buddha’s teaching is expected to observe the five precepts. The first precept against killing includes more than refraining from directly taking life. It contains ahimsa, nonviolence: do not torment those with less power.
Across from violence stand nonviolence and compassion. Toward whom do compassion and giving move? We do not ordinarily call it generosity when we give to someone with more wealth and power than ourselves. Giving means offering one’s body, time, labor, property, and food to those who are hungry, deprived, and vulnerable. Violence and generosity both concern the weaker party, but the first takes and crushes while the second protects and sustains.
Pressuring a small, struggling news outlet was the act of the powerful
The event wore an impressive title, but what actually took place? Groups of monks and lay Buddhists went to a small news organization already pushed to the brink of closure and applied pressure. Compared with the Jogye Order’s authority, status, and network, Buddhist Focus was plainly the weaker party.
Did the participants worry that demonstrating there would bring harm upon themselves? Almost certainly not. If one pressures another while confident that no retaliation or cost will return, the positions of strong and weak are evident. The world cannot be reduced to a single binary of strong and weak, but even by this limited test the action was violent.
The people at Buddhist Focus persisted in reporting on those with authority and status, receiving little support while trying to do what they believed right. They struggled to preserve a small outlet and finally endured violence directly. If the phrase “destroying falsehood and revealing truth” must be used, it better describes the tenacity of those who challenged power.
The Jogye Order’s power did not embrace the vulnerable with compassion
The Jogye Order did not display compassion toward the weaker party. Buddhist Focus was branded, without reasonable grounds, as an outlet manipulated by the National Intelligence Service and was harassed for a long time. Eventually monks, lay supporters, and people connected with former President Jaseung gathered against the outlet. A group possessing institutional power directed that power at a fragile newsroom.
A further violence occurred when this action was named a “walking pilgrimage for destroying falsehood and revealing truth.” I call this verbal violence. An act of pressure was dressed in language suggesting that evil was being destroyed and righteousness established. The deed was decorated by false speech. The spirit of the precept against killing was violated, and so was the precept against lying.
Can a procession of anger and punishment be called a pilgrimage?
The mind of someone on pilgrimage toward a sacred place should be reverent and oriented toward the Buddha’s teaching. But if the heart is full of rage—determined to knock an opponent down, teach them a lesson, and make them close quickly—is there even a fragment of compassion? How can such a procession be given the name pilgrimage?
The participants occupied the position of strength, confident that they themselves would suffer no harm, while Buddhist Focus was vulnerable. It is difficult to say that they could not know this. More shameful still is the condition of the Buddhist community: a harmful deed was reversed through grand language, justified, and directed against the weak, yet almost no one offered serious criticism.
I ask again: who is the weaker party? Compassion is not a verbal ornament. It is the act of lowering one’s own power and giving of oneself toward those without power. Destroying falsehood and revealing truth should not be a slogan that legitimizes the anger of authority; it should actually break deception and establish what is right. Once that phrase is attached to violence against the vulnerable, Buddhist language itself is inverted. A religion that speaks of compassion must guard against precisely this inversion.
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