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After the last couple weeks talking about Buddhist approaches to war and violence, with implicit and explicit reflection on the current war in Gaza, I want to look closely at a charged word at the heart of current politics about the war: ceasefire.

I think the traditional Buddhist view is obvious: always for ceasefire, for putting out fires [of greed, hatred, and delusion, but also of physical and verbal violence], for never again lighting fires… and I hope that’s the teaching folks get from these conversations we’ve been having. But I haven’t been emphasizing the word itself in the talks in the way that current activist discourse has been using it. Would it be helpful to do so?

This becomes a question about right speech and political speech, and highlights how this word—similar to charged political phrases like “Defund the police” or “Black/All lives matter”—has become a statement of positionality and view in relation to the current moment, rather than an abstract universal.

The Buddha’s teaching uses the metaphor of fire to talk about grasping and liberation, and “extinguishment” is a reasonable translation of nibbāna/nirvāṇa. So “ceasefire,” if it means the volitional pausing of violence even when there’s still an impulse for violence in the system, is a synonym for renunciation of causing harm. Ceasefire is the first precept. From here we might frame a geopolitical war for land and resources as having the same general structure as the inner war for identity and comfort the Buddhist path is intended to end.

The first practice is to restrain our impulses to harm others in order to get what we want, and only when that restraint is achieved can we do the deeper purification of uprooting the impulse itself.

SEAN OAKES
Sean Feit Oakes, PhD (he/they, queer, Puerto Rican & English, living on Pomo ancestral land in Northern California), teaches Buddhism and somatic practice focusing on the integration of meditation, trauma resolution, and social justice. He received Insight Meditation teaching authorization from Jack Kornfield, and wrote his dissertation on extraordinary states in Buddhist meditation and experimental dance. Sean holds certifications in Somatic Experiencing (SEP, assistant), and Yoga (E-RYT 500, YACEP), and teaches at Spirit Rock Meditation Center, East Bay Meditation Center, Insight Timer, and elsewhere.

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Blessings on your path.