Ahimsa: the subtlety of non-violence

ahimsapratisthayam tatsannidhau vairatyagah 
ahimsa: non-violence
pratisthayam: standing firmly, firmly established
tat: his
sannidhau: presence, vicinity
vaira: animosity, hostility
tyagah: forsaking, abandoning, deserting

"When non-violence in speech, thought and action is established, one's aggressive nature is relinquished and others abandon hostility in one's presence."
An important piece in studying the Yamas and Niyamas is looking beyond their superficial meanings, and looking at the intricate ways in which they play out in everyday circumstances. I thought about this all week when integrating the concept of non-violence into my life. And boy, it is subtle.
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Well, what is violence, to begin with? The sutra says that if one understands the nature of violence, one can truly be non-violent. This means investigating the many subtle ways in which violence plays out.

Because I'm a word geek, and have a particular weakness for etymology, I looked up the word "violence" in the dictionary. It comes from the Latin violentia, meaning vehemence or forcibility. It comes from the roots vis, meaning force, and fero, meaning to carry. Thus, the original meaning of violence is to carry force.
The dictionary then gave me the definition of violence as "physical force used to inflict injury or damage", "a great destructive force or energy", "intense, turbulent, or furious and often destructive action or force", and my personal favourite, "vehement feeling or expression."

Holy wow. I wonder how many people see the word "non-violence" and skip over it in their minds, thinking, meh, I've never really hurt anybody, hey I've never caused physical harm to anyone, I'm good. I know I have. But this week really got me thinking about how many subtle ways there are to be "violent". It's not just hitting people. Of course, I've been exposed to this idea before, as I have some training in non-violent communication (NVC). Those of you who have not read Marshall Rosenberg's Non-Violent Communication: A Language of Life, I recommend you do so. It's an incredibly life changing book. It explores how by identifying our own and each others' feelings and needs, we move away from a reactionary, "violent" way of communicating, and towards compassionate communication. One of the most challenging yet rewarding things to do is to listen to someone and not judge, react, or give advice. Simply being a witness can be extremely challenging, especially for Type A personalities. Those of us who like to be in control, always be right, and fix everything, feel extremely challenged by "just being a witness to experience." As the sutra says, one must be non-violent in speech.

However, it is not enough to abide by the adage of kindergarten, "if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all." If we want to work towards being non-violent, we must let go of the judgements that pervade our thoughts. Before I "don't say anything at all", I must first stop the judgemental thoughts that run through my head. Oh, and the word "judgement" doesn't mean a bad judgement. It just means an analysis of someone else's experience, thinking that we know something that they don't. For myself, I had to consistently fight that overwhelming desire to give sagely advice that I myself don't even act upon, rather than simply bearing witness to someone else's experience. It's removing an assumption that I somehow know better than someone else, it's wiping the slate clean and approaching another person's experience as a baby would. I have no idea how someone else experiences the world, what kind of a life they have lived, in order to be saying the things they say or doing the things they do. It's understanding that everyone is doing the best they can for where they are at, and to move away from judgement entirely. Even making the judgement that something is "good" can be violent. Heck, think about how damaging the mainstream education system can be with its external rewards system, getting a gold star every time we do something "good." Even then, I just recognized I made a judgement about the education system, rather than understanding where that system came from and why. And then I may judge myself for having a judgement, and the cycle continues.

This is not to say that we can never, ever have thoughts about something, or ever give advice. But for me, its being aware of the intention behind my thoughts or advice. It's stepping back and re-evaluating these thoughts and deciding whether its best to let them out of my mouth, or let them go and just be a witness.

This comes back to the definition and root of the word "violence", as a vehement force. Giving advice, or trying to change someone's viewpoint or action, is, in many ways, an attempt to force the situation. It's moving against the flow of the universe, if I were speaking in Taoist terms. Now, of course there are times in which this is necessary. If someone's about to hurl themselves in front of the subway tracks, I'm not going to say "meh, don't want to force the flow of the universe". Hey, I might even encourage someone to think differently about something or give advice once in a while. So what's the difference? I think it's my attachment to the result of my encouragement or advice. I have to accept that everyone is where they are at, and I personally am not going to change them. People only change on their own. They may be inspired by someone else, but the actual change occurs within, when they are ready to make that step.

This brought me to my most important conclusion this week, that I have heard over and over again in theory, but only really understood through examining ahimsa these past seven days. "Be the change you wish to see in the world" is a phrase that has been thrown around a lot, and one I've heard for most of my adult life without really understanding. Rather than preach to someone about how they should change, realize that by pointing one finger at someone else I point three back to me, and simply be in my truth and do my best to evolve myself. Let people do what they will do, unless it deeply affects you or others in some extreme way. Once again, I say all this within reason. Usually when I want to change someone's behaviour, it is something that I have not made peace with in myself, and is in fact something I need to work on. This is not only non-violent, but makes my life a whole lot easier to manage.

And then I came to the even more intricate and subtle elements of violence: that which we inflict upon ourselves. If we are inflicting violence upon ourselves, how can we practice non-violence toward others? We must first have compassion toward ourselves. How many times a day do I have a violent thought directed toward myself? How many times a day do I judge myself? Expect too much of myself? Not forgive myself? A whole heck of a lot, is the answer.

I'm not really, overall, what you would call a Type A personality. But there are some aspects to myself that certainly are like that. I can have quite extreme patterns that rotate in a binge-purge type cycle that goes on until the end of time. I lack patience for myself in making changes in my life. We humans are creatures of habit. We develop habits because they serve us in some way, and they are comfortable. We can't tell ourselves to pack all our bags and leave all of our possibly destructive habits at once. We can't, and yet I've attempted this several times in my life. After several days, weeks, months or years of lax eating habits, watching too much TV, laziness, not reading enough, etc etc, I decide to burst forth from my room and wipe the slate clean. I want to run a marathon, eliminate every so-called "bad food", write a novel, join the circus and of course, save the world. And then, after less than 24 hours, I'm even worse than before, because we humans simply are not able to change that much that fast. There comes a time, and for me that is my late 20s, when we can no longer repeat our patterns, because they are too damn obvious. Yes, I could make the argument that feeding myself food that isn't nourishing,  or sitting in front of a screen rather than reading or exercising, is doing violence to myself. However, it is also violent to expect myself to change overnight. As they say, Rome wasn't built in a day. Or, a thousand mile journey begins with a single step.

Make simple changes, Lisi. Not grand ones, because, remember all those other times you tried that? You bounced back. It didn't work. Be nicer to yourself. It's okay if you aren't perfect. If some of them fall through, don't worry about it.

So the other day, when I was too tired to do anything except lie in bed and watch TV, I released my guilt and enjoyed it. Actually allowing myself to do that for a day was actually what I needed. Yes, I could have been reading instead, or writing a Dostoyevskian novel, or working on my plan to solve world hunger, but my body needed rest. And the next day, I felt so much better, especially without all the guilt hanging around, too. Gevalt.

There are many ways in which we could look at the violence of our actions. This includes the way we treat ourselves, our friends, people we don't know. It also includes our consumer choices and personal habits. We are so disconnected from our consumer choices that we may be inflicting violence when we have no idea we are. I wanted to talk less about this because I've spent a good chunk of my life talking about the consumer choices we should make, and, frankly, I'm tired of it. Though it might be violent to eat factory farmed meat, it is also violent to yell at someone in a fit of didactic rage that they should be more conscious of their meat choices.  I would rather do that work myself and share what I've learned about how to practice non-violence in my thoughts towards myself and others.

Namaste.

Elysia