Trigun Bookclub: nepentheisms: Trigun Maximum Volume 8: Applying some Buddhist concepts to the conversation between Vash and Knives

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Original Tumblr Post: Applying some Buddhist concepts to the conversation between Vash and Knives

Applying some Buddhist concepts to the conversation between Vash and Knives

Trimax Volume 8 has one of my favorite Vash quotes in it.

“Only the victims of violence can truly describe its essence.”

Really, this whole exchange with Knives that happens in the first chapter of this volume sounds very Buddhist in its language. I’ll do my best to parse out some of the concepts I think are at play here, but I should make it clear that I do not have as extensive a personal history with Buddhism as I do with Christianity. I was raised Christian growing up, but my experience as a Chinese-American kid with immigrant parents meant a lot of early childhood exposure to works of fiction with Buddhist themes (think Journey to the West). Also, because we lived in an area with a sizeable population of east and southeast asian immigrants, I developed a surface level familiarity with Buddhist iconography and terminology thanks to friends who were raised Buddhist and regular encounters with Buddhist artwork in local businesses. The rest of my knowledge comes from informal self-study. If anyone out there has more relevant experience in this field, feel free to correct me if I get anything wrong.

Here we go: LONG POST AHEAD

What first caught my attention was Knives’ word choice – “I was enlightened.” I’m curious what word in the Japanese text was translated as “enlightened” here. A lot of foundational Buddhist literature was written in Sanskrit, and the Sanskrit word that is often translated into English as “enlightenment” is bodhi. This word carries connotations of waking up and coming into awareness and knowledge. In Japanese, the words I’ve seen for this concept are satori and kenshō.

According to Thomas Cleary, who translated many pieces of Zen Buddhist literature throughout his career, kenshō is the “Zen insight into the essence of one’s own being,” and satori is “complete kenshō” (1) . Kenshō is written using the Chinese characters 見 (jiàn) which means “see” and 性 (xìng) which means “nature” or “character.” This is of particular interest for the above panels, because Knives is saying his pain “revealed [his] true self,” and he wants humans to likewise look within to confront the reality of what they are.

Now, at this point in the story, it’s pretty clear that Knives’ ideas about both who he is and the nature of humanity as a whole are flawed. He’s insisting that he has attained enlightenment – some transcendent insight into reality – but from a Buddhist perspective, he’s very far off the mark because his mindset was skewed from the start. In fact, Vash gives a keen diagnosis of how Knives is going wrong when he says “We’ve suffered, but you bottled it up, keeping yourself from feeling the pain and never finding the true source of it.” Vash’s point is that after obtaining the knowledge of humanity’s capacity for evil, Knives only sought to avoid further pain at all cost instead of seeking a deeper understanding of how he’s been hurt. The conclusion Knives drew was “the fundamental nature of humans is that they are a threat to me, and they are my inferiors. If they cause pain to me, it is because of their inherent evil, and the only way I can eliminate the potential for suffering is by killing them all.” But contrary to Knives’ perspective, the path out of suffering in the enlightened Buddhist perspective isn’t through forcibly imposing your will on the rest of world until you’ve destroyed everything that could hurt you.

Instead, Buddhism considers dukkha (suffering) the first of the Four Noble Truths and emphasizes that we should accept the reality that as finite beings in a world constantly in flux, unpleasant emotions and experiences will always find us. There always will be elements outside of our control, but we don’t have to allow the hurt they cause to create persistent negative states of being. What we need to do is to not run away from suffering but to understand the cause of it (find “the true source of it” as Vash says) and develop an awareness of how it arises within us – this is the second Noble Truth, called samudhaya. In Buddhism, the origin of suffering is linked to desire and attachment, and Buddhist philosophy posits that by following the fourth Noble Truth, known as the Noble Eightfold Path, the practitioner can experience the third Noble Truth, nirodha (cessation of the desires giving rise to suffering).

With the way Knives currently is, this cessation is something that’ll be out of reach for him even if he succeeds in his goals, because he hasn’t reckoned with the fear and need for control that is motivating him. He can’t complete the path to enlightenment, because his view of the path is obscured by self-delusion. Knives constantly acts as though his goals and feelings are the only ones that matter, but suppose he does realize his vision and kill every human being on the planet. What then? Isn’t he effectively alone since there is no one else around that he considers his equal? And where does all the hate and fear that he has purposely cultivated for over a century go? It’s doubtful that he’d be able to let go of his attachment to such emotions so easily.

(1): The Thomas Cleary book I’m referencing is Kensho: The Heart of Zen

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