while i don't agree entirely with his complete dismissal of ritual, i must admit he argues his case extremely well and offers a refreshing take on what it must mean to live a life in imitation of Christ - in his eyes the complete adherence to a well known passage from the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5: 38-39 "Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also."
combined with his criticism of church and state, both of which he argues as fundamentally opposed to and contradictive of Christ's injuctions (1 COR 7: 23) Tolstoy has come to be seen as somewhat of a godfather figure to the anarcho-pacifists.
reading through, one thing that's grabbed my attention is his response in chapter 2 to a criticism levelled at his advocation of non-resistance -
"even if to use force against wicked men had been permitted by God, since it is impossible to find a perfect and unfailing distinction by which one could positively know the wicked from the good, so it would come to all individual men and societies of men mutually regarding each other as wicked men, as is the case now."
i was very much reminded with these words, of Shinran's own conception of the impossibility of comprehending what is truly good and what is truly evil such as Amida knows found in the third postcript of the Tannisho -
I know nothing at all of good or evil. For if I could know thoroughly, as Amida Tathagata knows, that an act was good, then I would know good. If I could know thoroughly, as the Tathagata knows, that an act was evil, then I would know evil. But with a foolish being full of blind passions, in this fleeting world- this burning house- all matters without exception are empty and false, totally without truth and sincerity. The nembutsu alone is true and real.
while i acknowledge that there is a difference here in that Shinran is speaking about thorough knowledge of good and evil acts in and of themselves whereas Tolstoy is focussing on distinction between the two whereby positive knowledge of both is arrived at, nonetheless i think the comparison bears up.
it's interesting at least if nothing else and i may return to these thoughts the further into Tolstoy's tome i go.
namu amida butsu
