Why am I so violent?

Ignorance, in the Buddhist lexicon, is an inability to recognize the true nature of things and of the law of cause and effect that governs happiness and suffering. Supporters of ethnic cleansing, for instance, claim that they want to build the best of all possible worlds, and some appear to be deeply convinced of the rightness of their abomination. As paradoxical and unhealthy as it may seem, those who satisfy their selfish impulses by sowing death and destruction expect their actions to bring them a certain degree of gratification. Malevolence, delusion, contempt, and arrogance can never be means of achieving genuine happiness; and yet, even as they veer wildly astray, those who are cruel, obsessed, self-righteous, or conceited are still blindly pursuing happiness while being completely unaware of its true nature. Likewise, someone who commits suicide in order to end unbearable anguish is desperately reaching out for happiness.

How do we dispel this basic ignorance? The only way is through honesty and sincere introspection. There are two ways we can undertake this: analysis and contemplation. Analysis consists of a candid and systematic evaluation of every aspect of our own suffering and of the suffering we inflict on others. It involves understanding which thoughts, words, and actions inevitably lead to pain and which contribute to well-being. Of course, such an approach requires that we first come to see that something is not quite right with our way of being and acting. We then need to feel a burning desire to change.

The contemplative approach consists of rising above the whirlpool of our thoughts for a moment and looking calmly within, as if at an interior landscape, to find the embodiment of our deepest aspirations. For some this may be a life lived intensely at every moment, sampling the many delicacies of pleasure. For others it may be the attainment of goals: a family, social success, leisure, or, more modestly, a life without undue suffering. But these formulations are incomplete. If we go even deeper into ourselves, we may come to find that our primary aspiration, that which underlies all the others, is for some satisfaction powerful enough to nourish our love of life. This is the wish: “May every moment of my life and of the lives of others be one of wisdom, flourishing, and inner peace!”

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