Abstract

Both on Buddhist tradition and René Girard´s thought ignorance and desire are on the basis of suffering and violence. The Buddhist tradition puts/takes ignorance, that nothing exists in and by itself, avydia as the cause of all sufferings because it generates a chain of desire / aversion that leads us to an imprisonment where we move from desiring an object to another. Girard´s perspective founds violence´s origin on the ignorance of our mimetic desire. The subject ignores that, far from being free, autonomous and differentiated, as the "romantic lie" prays, he only desires and wants by imitating a model. Neither the subject nor the object, which the subject freely thinks to desire, exist free for themselves. While this model prevails, he will react more and more violently to the claims of the subject; and even if the subject overtakes its model, he will greedily seek another and another model, always doomed to deception. If we add to this the proximity of the two anti-sacrificial perspectives, displayed on the descriptive closeness of the samsara´s wheel and the circular and sacrificial time of a pagan society, we find between Girard and the buddhist tradition enough common points for their mutual understanding.