What is evil?

[JimmyB]

Interesting

Dear all,

Evil is whatever brings harm to you and to others

I like that, simple and direct but I agree that it is not always easy see.

There are a couple of possibilities that come immediately to mind for the country being attacked.
1) talk to the enemy, but that is really too late as the tanks are rolling by the first towns.
2) let the enemies in without conflict.
3) fight the enemy, which inevitably ends up killing some of them.

Case 1 and 2 will result in loss of land, loss of self-governing, possible/probable abuse of people at the hands of the enemy, etc.
Case 3 results in the loss of life.

Either way, case 1, 2, or 3 is not devoid of loss of some sort.

Most of us would choose option 3 without thinking about it much.

Here is an interesting point. Is option 3 still considered evil overall?.

I would consider the act of harming others to be evil whatever reason, but depending on the situation it might be less evil than to stand by and do nothing. Imagine a situation where a person armed with a knife is attacking an innocent stranger on the street. To protect this person I intervene and in the process I break the attackers nose or perhaps breaks his wrist to get rid of the knife. I have harmed the attacker and that is never good, but if I hadn't done so maybe the stranger on the street would have died. Of course it would be better if I didn't have to break a nose or a wrist but I would choose that before letting the other person die.

That is my opinion, but I would like to know how this would fit in with karmic effects. And also I wonder if the above would lessen the attackers bad karma since he never had the chance to badly injure someone else?

With warm regards
Jimmy

[TaiChiPete]

Jimmy

I would consider the act of harming others to be evil whatever reason, but depending on the situation it might be less evil than to stand by and do nothing. Imagine a situation where a person armed with a knife is attacking an innocent stranger on the street. To protect this person I intervene and in the process I break the attackers nose or perhaps breaks his wrist to get rid of the knife. I have harmed the attacker and that is never good, but if I hadn't done so maybe the stranger on the street would have died. Of course it would be better if I didn't have to break a nose or a wrist but I would choose that before letting the other person die.

An opinion on how the Karma might be influenced in this situation.

• If your intention is to protect only and you harbour no malice to the armed person, and perhaps after disarming them you ensure they are OK - that would be good
• Another scenario is that in the "struggle" you become overwhelmed with anger. A Karmic side affect may be that you develop an irrational fear of similar people (race, size, complexion), you become afraid or angry every time you see someone who looks similar - not so good.

As to TheGreenKnights question - I think its very difficult to see a "good" answer ... So my mind turns to the example the Dalai Lama set in Tibet, which I think was somewhere between option 1 & 2 (please correct me if my understanding of this period is incorrect). My thought is - although this feels like a very hard choice (and I struggle to see how I would take it) is that it may be (from a karmic perspective) the "best" option.

I would be interested in others views.

Pete

[cnholmes]

I think that Sifu has already defined evil quite beautifully and succinctly: Evil is whatever brings harm to you and to others. Of course, that's not always easy to see.

I think this statement is the key to compassion.

When we first look at the phrase 'whatever brings harm', the word 'whatever' is abhorrent to us. We can not exist without bringing harm. Even the act of eating will cause harm to an animal or plant. Breathing and fighting off germs both harm micro-organisms.

So does that mean we are all evil?

No-one is 'evil'. People do things which bring harm, and there is evil there. Intentionally harming someone is an evil deed. Unintentional harm, including harm done when incompetently trying to do good, is evil. Sometimes we don't realise the harm we're doing.

If unintentional harm has evil about it, and if we can not avoid doing harm, and if we can never be sure whether we're doing any harm, then we must be compassionate when we consider the evil we see in other people. They might be in one of those states that we know to be true of ourselves.

Regards,
Chris.

[TaiChiPete]

Compassion

Chris,

Thanks for joining in, nice post, and nice link to compassion.

Those who get the UK newsletter will have seen this link already but here it is again - http://www.shaolinwahnamuknewsletter....blogspot.com/ An interesting Article by Sifu Innes. I particularly liked his insight on why non-violence is often underrated:

There is no pro-active term for Non-Violence which often leads to a misinterpretation of what it represents

Both in this thread and this one "Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life" http://wongkiewkit.com/forum/showthread.php?t=6538. We demonstrate a reluctance to believe that non-violence is a positive step. I think Innes's statement reveals that this is so imbedded in western culture that even our language represents it.

I think it is worth reading Innes's article and continuing the discussion may less on what Evil is and more on why we struggle with Antonious's quote

Evil is whatever brings harm to you and to others. Of course, that's not always easy to see.

Pete

[Andrew R]

Myes, excellent discussion, it's really helped me decide on something I've been contemplating lately. It's similar to JimmyB's notion of harming an attacker to avoid greater damage.

Recently an ex-gf of mine (who gets very jealous and is quite vengeful) treated my current girlfriend quite poorly behind her back. Girlfriend 1 would constantly say horrendous things about Gf2, and I would always get quite upset with her, but never to the extreme.

Then Gf1 said on a site similar to MySpace that "Gf2 should die." After hearing about this I wrote to Gf1 and told her very firmly how inappropriate it was for her to do it, explaining why and asked for an apology. This I knew would create more conflict between her and me, but I felt that she needed to be told that her ways were wrong and she should rethink them for later on. Perhaps I was wrong to do so, but I felt that it went with the idea of creating a smaller conflict to avoid a possibly much larger one.

Thoughts?

Another thing I've been thinking about is using curse words. I guess it might be similar to the example of an insulting joke. If you're around people who don't mind curse words, is it harmful to use them? I guess when you do use them, they carry the feeling of anger (in most cases) but it could be possible to use them without carrying any anger or insult.

Thoughts?

Drew

[Andrew R]

Evil is whatever brings harm to you and to others.

Thinking about this, I think that it's important that one look at events openly, meaning sometimes it requires analyzing to see what will really happen, and if it's really evil. Think about what will happen not just right now, but long term effects. This is still being the moment, because you're handling a current problem.

For example, while blacks were being oppressed in the United States, Martin Luther King Jr. made a huge improvement in the social situation by creating some conflict. Even though he taught acting in a peaceful manner, his and others' actions brought significant harm to thousands of people. However, in the long run it made the overall situation tremendously better. So, even though temporary harm was caused, could anyone really call MLK Jr. evil?

Drew

[Ronny]

Some extreme buddhist monks set themselves under strict quarantine in a closed room without an earthly floor. They do this because they fear to do any unintentionally harm to insects, ants, beetles and other little animals. They live their whole life under this strict rules, and never leave the quarantine again. (Of course someone else is bringing the vegetarian food for them).

In my opinion such a life is against what the great Buddha have teached. He promotes the "middle-way" between the two extremes of harsh asceticism and unlimited (worldly) pleasure. He promotes the "middle-way" not out of sheer (intelectual) speculations but because of his own experiences he had made.

I think if we kill unintentionally, then it was just a matter of karmic effect and maybe we did the best for the killed because maybe in this way we have given him the opportunity to be reborn in a better life.