Clear Vision Trust

Non-exploitation

As the bee takes honey from the flower,
Leaving its colour and fragrance unharmed,
So let the monk go about the village.

Dhammapada 49

This verse comes from the Dhammapada, an ancient and deeply loved anthology of verses which was the first Buddhist text to be translated from the original Pali into a European language (in this case Latin). It is characteristic of Buddhist scriptures to draw all sorts of beautiful illustrations, metaphors, similes, and parables from day-to-day life in India, and so it is with this verse from the Dhammapada, which is taken from the chapter called 'Flowers', so-called because each verse mentions a flower of some kind, or flowers in general, by way of illustration.

Anyone who has lived in India or in any of the Buddhist countries of South-east Asia will be familiar with the timeless scene evoked in these lines - the monk going for alms in the village. It was a scene I participated in myself in my own wandering days as a monk, when I went around on foot from place to place. But I have seen it as an observer often enough, and will describe it here from that viewpoint. Usually the monks go out for alms very early in the morning, because in India there is no such thing traditionally as a midday meal. People eat what we would call lunch at about nine o'clock in the morning; it is a huge meal, consisting mainly of rice. After that - in the villages at least - people go off to work in the fields and don't come back home again to eat until five or six in the evening. So if the monk wants to fill his bowl, he has to be off at the crack of dawn, leaving the monastery and moving silently along the deserted streets, stopping briefly at each house.

The Buddhist custom is that throughout his alms collection tour, as it is called, the monk should stand silently at each door with his begging-bowl, not asking for anything. But people are usually on the lookout for monks at this time, so it may be that a child runs inside and says, 'Mummy, the monk is here,' and the mother says, 'All right, ask him to wait.' Then she quickly ladles out some rice and curry, and takes it outside to put in the monk's bowl. The monk then recites a verse of blessing in Pali, and moves on to stand at the door of the next hut.

The idea is not to get the whole meal from any one house, but to take a little here and a little there. In India even today Hindu sadhus follow this custom. It is called madhukari bhiksa, which means collecting alms just like the bee collects honey. Just as the bee collects a little pollen from each flower it visits, in the same way the monk accepts a little food from one house, a little food from another, until he has enough to sustain him for the day.

Food is just one of four things that the monk is traditionally entitled to expect from lay supporters. These four requisites or essentials are: firstly, food; secondly, clothing, especially in the form of the saffron robe; thirdly, shelter, whether a temporary hut, a monastery, or some arrangement in between; and fourthly, medicine. When the monk is ordained he is told that this is all he should expect from the lay people, and all he can accept from them.

The idea is that the monk or nun - that is, the person devoted to the religious life - should accept from lay supporters only what is necessary to keep him or her going, so that he or she can practise meditation, study, and teach the Dharma, and make progress towards Enlightenment. Inevitably, after 2,500 years of Buddhist history, a few things have been added to the list of requisites. The most significant addition is perhaps books; in modern times a collection of a few books tends to count as a fundamental requisite.

But Buddhist monks still generally lead an exceedingly simple life, making do with one or at most two meals a day, quite basic accommodation in cottages or huts, the minimum of clothing (easy enough in a tropical country), and very simple medicines. Incidentally, this medicine is supposed to be made of gallnuts and cow's urine. This is less bizarre than it sounds; you can make a sort of ammonia out of cow's urine which is efficacious in a number of ways. Many Buddhist monks take cow's urine religiously, so to speak, and swear by its curative powers. Indeed, a very orthodox Sri Lankan monk with whom I was in regular correspondence wrote to me while I was once lying ill, in Benares, and advised me in the strongest terms to take cow's urine, assuring me that if I did so I would never be sick again in my life. (Not having heeded his advice, I cannot vouch for this.)

But people in the West often say, 'Well, that's all very well. It's a great arrangement from the monk's point of view: he gets his food, he gets his clothing, he gets housed, perhaps in a beautiful monastery, he gets medicine when he is sick. Everything is provided for him, so that he can quietly get on with his studies, his meditation, his literary work, or his preaching, as he thinks fit. But what does he give in return?'

The traditional answer to this question is: nothing. He gets all he needs and he does absolutely nothing in return. Nobody even expects anything in return, and it does not occur to the monk that he should give anything in return. Anything you give to monks or nuns is given for the support of the sangha, not as payment for teaching. Correspondingly, teaching is not given in return for that support. The monk accepts what he needs, and he gives what he can, but there is no relationship between the two, no equivalence between what you give and what you get, no reciprocal relationship at all. You don't think of translating what you give into so many equivalent units of what you ought to receive. You keep the two things quite separate. When you can give, you give. When you need, you accept. There is no question of a bargain being struck. Just as the bee accepts the pollen it needs from the flower to make its honey, without injuring the flower in any way, in the same way, the monk quietly and gently accepts what he needs without doing any harm to the village. In both cases, there is no exploitation.

This, then, is ideally the nature of the relationship between the layperson and 'ascetics and brahmins' which the Buddha lists as the last of the six relationships to which Sigalaka (and all of us) should pay attention. But perhaps this relationship is more obscure to us than the others; Western Buddhists do not generally think along the traditional lines of monastic and lay, although we may find it easier to relate to the full-timer/part-timer distinction we considered in an earlier chapter. But there is a further aspect of this verse of the Dhammapada that most translations fail to draw out clearly, but which broadens out what is being said beyond the monastic-lay relationship. It concerns the term 'monk'.

The first problem with this word is that in Buddhism there is nothing resembling the Western conception of a monk. This problem is further compounded by the fact that 'monk' is the standard rendering of the term bhiksu, whereas the word in this verse is not bhiksu but muni. In some contexts muni means monk in the sense of bhiksu, but not always. A muni, essentially, is a wise man, or holy man, or sage. The Buddha was not only called 'Buddha'; he was given many other titles, including Shakyamuni, 'sage of the Shakya tribe'. Muni is also related to the term mauna, which in Sanskrit, as well as in the modern languages of northern India, means 'silence'. So a muni is one who is silent, or even one who observes a vow of silence. In order to bring out this double meaning, some translators render muni as 'the silent sage'.

This combination of meanings reflects an interesting association of ideas: it suggests that silence and wisdom go together, that the wise man doesn't talk too much. Whether he is wise because he is silent or silent because he is wise, or both, it may be difficult to say. In any case, it is clear that we are talking about more than just monks here. It becomes clearer what muni means once we consider that this verse is very ancient, one of the earliest (along with some passages of the Sutta Nipata) of all Buddhist scriptures. Some scholars believe that muni was the original term used by Buddhists for the disciple of the Buddha who is himself Enlightened. According to this theory, the word arhant - the term for this ideal which has become so familiar - came later.

We can therefore get a much broader, more universal meaning from this verse by replacing the line 'so let the monk move about the village' with 'so let the wise person live in the world'. In this way, what appears to be an injunction restricted to those who are at least technically monks becomes applicable to everybody who lives in the world. It is important that it does so because it establishes a fundamental principle of the ethical and spiritual life, which is that the wise person does not exploit anyone or anything. This may seem very simple to understand, but if it were to be thoroughly and systematically put into practice, the effects would be far-reaching indeed.

If we are wise, we take from society, from others, from our environment, what we objectively need in order to sustain life, to work, and to progress spiritually. But we do no harm to individuals, to society at large, or to the environment. And we give what we can. However unrealistic this ideal may seem, one does occasionally come across reflections of it in real working relationships, and there is no reason why it cannot be held up in the context of any working environment. Moreover, the principle of non-exploitation extends far beyond the field of economics. It has psychological and even spiritual implications which can be extended to cover the whole field of personal relationships, especially our more intimate relationships.

We don't just decide to like someone on a whim. We like them because they fulfil a certain need we have - a need of which we are not usually conscious, although we can become conscious of it if we try. If we don't try to become conscious of what our own needs are, we tend to rationalize our liking for someone: we say we like them because they are considerate and kind, or because they love animals as we do, or because they are interested in Buddhism as we are. But behind these rational appraisals there is often something quite different at work. Perhaps that person satisfies our need for attention, our psychological need to be at the very centre of things. As long as that need continues, we shall continue to want it to be satisfied. And if we get from someone the attention we need, then obviously we will want that relationship to continue.

But how are we going to ensure that it does continue? Most of us, whether we realize it or not, find that the best way of doing this is to find out what the other person needs, and make sure that we are the person who satisfies that need. They may have, say, a deep lack of self-worth that manifests as a craving to be appreciated. Latching on to this, we start saying, 'What a wonderful writer you are - I wish I had such a way with words!' or 'Did you really paint this yourself? How do you manage to achieve such magical effects?' We give them what we sense they need, so that they become dependent on us for the satisfaction we give them, just as we have become dependent on them for the satisfaction of our own needs. In short, together we create a relationship of mutual dependence and exploitation. An unconscious bargain is struck; this is the basis of most human relationships. Because the whole process is more or less unconscious, neither party to the bargain questions whether the need is valid, or whether it is an artificial and unhealthy need which it would be better not to encourage. In this situation, the relationship is likely either to terminate catastrophically or to settle down into an increasingly boring routine.

Does this mean that we should never look to another person to fulfil our needs? Do we not have some valid psychological needs? The answer to this question lies in this same verse from the Dhammapada. Yes, we do have valid needs - material needs, psychological needs, and spiritual needs - but we should fulfil them as the bee takes pollen from the flower, without exploiting the person who fulfils those needs.

There are two kinds of need. Under the influence of one kind, we unconsciously negotiate a situation of mutual exploitation. The other kind of need is one of which we are more conscious, more aware. It is not bargain-hunting, but an ever-deepening spirit of mutual giving, without any thought of return. It happens between parents and children at their best. The parents give freely to the children without thinking that the children are going to reward them later for their efforts. The children, likewise, give what they can to their parents, not thinking about everything their parents have done for them, but simply giving to them because they love them.

This principle of non-exploitation and mutual generosity is the key to the Buddha's philosophy of personal relations, whether in political, religious, economic, or more intimate personal relationships. It is a principle the Buddha himself exemplified. He spent forty-five years going around north-eastern India on foot, teaching. All that he took from people was one meal a day, a few yards of yellow cloth, a little hut somewhere - perhaps in somebody's garden - which he borrowed from time to time, and occasional supplies of medicine.

What he took was infinitesimal. But what he gave was - is - incalculable: indeed its nature is that it cannot be measured out and bartered. The gifts he gave - compassion, understanding, sympathy, wisdom, guidance, love - by their very nature can only be given with no thought of return. His was the perfect example of his philosophy of personal relationships. He took only what he needed; he gave everything he had to give. Ranged against this philosophy is a sort of shopkeeper's mentality, which is the bane of the human race. And in all our relationships we can choose between these two attitudes.