The term harm reduction is associated with a street level response to especially harmful and brutalizing societal issues such as addiction and over-dose deaths. It has also had long standing moral credence as a concept within Buddhist cultures. Harm is whatever produces suffering. Gross harm produces gross suffering but there is subtle harm from which humans also suffer. Meditation is about this.
Ahimsa (Sanskrit: harmless), functions as the very definition of Buddhist practice. The goal, the ultimate religious objective of Buddhism is to eliminate suffering. The way to do this is to avoid causing harm through any mental, verbal or physical activity. In the world of the possible, though, to be an ethical Buddhist means to be as non-harmful as possible while fully engaging in livelihood and community. Buddhist ethics lean more toward kindness and compassion in the sense that being right does not always resolve an ethical issue. Harmlessness as a personal goal takes effort as well as knowledge and desire, but even these are not enough. To make ahimsa operational, knowledge and desire conspire within meditation to forge a middle way.
Practical harm reduction always starts with one's own self, of course. Each of us is an endless well of behaviours and attitudes which, were we willing to examine them convivially, would begin to reveal how subtle are our interactions. A meaningful example I have seen is when someone, behaving extremely properly and well, began to fret that others did not seem to appreciate or even notice. That others were heedless and presumptuous. This kind of thought is like a seed from which alienation grows and flowers. Not being noticed and feeling alienated from other people almost always leads to trouble. All around us we can see that there are many people who seethe with resentment at something, often something of which every meme is fearful. Climate for one, caravans for another and childhood for almost everyone.
There are many things which make life more difficult. Grief often makes life itself seem terminally futile, at least for awhile. With patience most of these bouts with doubts and fears pass and leave behind some wisdom. Today though, even though there are memes and models of admirable ways to handle life's tribulations, the capacity to relate is evaporating. Instant gratification, glorified almost as a birthright, has been an ideal in our world. This dearth of patience has now given rise to silly 'movements' such as the absurd incel, as well as extreme ideations of violence and hatred. A cultural middle way would avoid the worst effects of extremes.
Most of us don't cultivate patience and calm. We might admire these qualities and respect them in others but we do not meditate. According to Buddhist teachings this is the missing component of western life. It's not about the religion, the teaching is about the meditation and how its influence stabilizes life partly by examining subtle suffering.
How many things are there in life that we take personally when we really shouldn't, I wonder? I know someone who always took strong headwinds personally and got angry whenever encountering one. Irrational, but, yet with cause: redolent with personal meaning unexamined because that person did not meditate. Had this unfortunate fellow lived in a meditation culture, this reflex to anger would likely have long since been transformed or voided.
Wayne Codling is a former Zen monastic and a lineage holder in the Soto Zen tradition. He teaches Zen style meditation in various venues around Victoria. Wayne’s talks and some writings can be found on his blog
You can read more articles on our interfaith blog, Spiritually Speaking, HERE: /blogs/spiritually-speaking
This article was published in the print edition of the Times 91原创 on Saturday, February 5th 2022
