Can anyone explain this conundrum to me?

federica

I know we're in Advanced ideas but this needs clarification for me... (last item, Miln III.7.8: Doing Evil Knowingly and Unknowingly - scroll down....)

I thought that kamma was volitional, so how does Doing Evil Unknowingly, trump doing it Knowingly....?
answers for a 10-year-old, please....:D

@Jason, I'd welcome your input.....

Sabre

This is what I think it means:

If you do bad evil things to others, but you don't realize they are bad, you will also never realize that it causes you and them suffering. So you will not change your behaviour and karma.

If you do bad evil things to others, but you do realize they are bad, you can start to realize that it causes you and them suffering. Than you might be able to change your behaviour and karma.

That's why doing evil things unknowingly of them being evil is worse. But it has to be intentional; it does not mean unknowingly in the sense of 'by accident'.


With metta,
Sabre

maarten

I think that whether it is volitional or not depends on the interpretation of 'unknowingly'. If I take someone's coat by mistake (i.e. stealing unknowingly) then it is not volitional. If I take the coat knowing that this is stealing, but not knowing that stealing is evil, then it is volitional.

In that case, the question is whether it is worse to steal the coat knowing that stealing is evil, or to steal the coat without even considering that there could be something wrong with that.

AMH

do you think part of this could be about carelessness or inattention that causes harm by itself? Sometimes or some people just kinda crash through life and may not ever want to cause harm but are really not paying attention or thinking. Some people do this out of a self centeredness, using the coat example they 'borrow' a coat and when asked about it later they say that the person who owned it liked them and wouldn't want them to be cold of course. They are both acting without thought but also without though for others.

Just thinking

Jason

If you do bad evil things to others, but you don't realize they are bad, you will also never realize that it causes you and them suffering. So you will not change your behaviour and karma.

If you do bad evil things to others, but you do realize they are bad, you can start to realize that it causes you and them suffering. Than you might be able to change your behaviour and karma.

That's why doing evil things unknowingly of them being evil is worse. But it has to be intentional; it does not mean unknowingly in the sense of 'by accident'.

I think that's a good way of looking at it.

In MN 56, the Buddha makes the point that intentional actions are more blameworthy than unintentional one; so if Miln 84 is saying the opposite, then it should be rejected as the Milindapanha is a later text and contradicts a more authoritative source. However, I think Sabre's explanation is consistent with both MN 56 and Miln 84, and illustrates why things discernment, appropriate attention, and right view are such important parts of the path.

genkaku

@Federica -- I think your grandma was right: "Just do the best you can, dear." There is no action or thought that does not reach out and touch every other action and thought. This is not intellectual. Calling things "good" or "bad" is tentative ... useful, but tentative.

"Do good, refrain from evil and purify this mind." The first two aspects of this encouragement are your grandma talking to a 10-year-old. The third aspect, to my mind, is a reminder that we are all hip-deep in the Big Muddy and that if we do not find our peace within what is called "evil" or "delusion" or whatever, we have missed the point.

Just noodling.

Jeffrey

I think it is a reason refuge is important so that a person may contemplate and study the teachings and see what is true. Creating merit only creates the conditions for study. Polishing karma doesn't escape samsara.

RichardH

as Sabre describes... we do things that cause trouble but we are too obtuse to see. We still have to live with the effects. Bet there are a million little things like that in daily life... if we are engaged in worldly matters.

jll

intention.
a small boy is not free from greed, anger etc.

I know we're in Advanced ideas but this needs clarification for me... (last item, Miln III.7.8: Doing Evil Knowingly and Unknowingly - scroll down....)

I thought that kamma was volitional, so how does Doing Evil Unknowingly, trump doing it Knowingly....?
answers for a 10-year-old, please....:D

@Jason, I'd welcome your input.....

Talisman

When you do evil and know that you have done evil, then you experience grief, regret, and other forms of immediate suffering that awaken in you a sense of urgency in altering your behavior.

When you do evil and think that it is good, then you do not experience grief, regret, and other forms of immediate suffering and thus are not granted to opportunity to learn from your mistake.

Imagine:

A person lies, knowing full well that lying is wrong. After lying, they feel bad about themselves and in the case of the mindful and virtuous person, they learn that in the future they should not lie because it causes them to suffer, and even better they may try to make amends for the lie they have told. Because the lie is punished by the aversive consequences, it is less likely that lies will occur in the future.

But then another person lies, thinking there is nothign wrong with lying as long as it leads to their immediate gain. They do not regret the action they have taken and do not experience any form of immediate repurcussion. The lie is reinforced by the acqusition of gain or some other reinforcing outcome, and so further lies will occur in the future.

As the Buddha has informed, a lie can be harmful to others and is thus unskillful and will lead to woeful states. For this reason, immediate punishment of a lie through learned aversive conditions brought on by mindfulness of a rule will slowly lead to a decrease in this type of unskillful behavior. Whereas the reinforcing consequences for those who do not understand that lying is evil will continue to reinforce it's performance by those individuals.

Jeffrey

Talisman, that helped me a lot.

Jason

When you do evil and know that you have done evil, then you experience grief, regret, and other forms of immediate suffering that awaken in you a sense of urgency in altering your behavior.

When you do evil and think that it is good, then you do not experience grief, regret, and other forms of immediate suffering and thus are not granted to opportunity to learn from your mistake.

Well said. This is similar to the Buddha's words at Iti 40:

This was said by the Blessed One, said by the Arahant, so I have heard: "Ignorance[1] precedes the arrival of unskillful qualities; lack of conscience & lack of concern[2] follow after. Clear knowing precedes the arrival of skillful qualities; conscience & concern follow after."


Any bad destinations
in this world, in the next,
are rooted in ignorance — all —
accumulations
of desire & greed.

And when a person of evil desires
lacks conscience & respect,
evil comes from that,
and by that he goes
to deprivation.

So cleansing away
ignorance, desire, & greed,
a monk giving rise to clear knowing
would abandon all bad destinations.

It reminds me of the back story of Angulimala, who intentionally killed many people because, according to some accounts, he was tricked by his jealous teacher to give him 1,000 figures as a parting gift (parting gifts being a Vedic tradition), which would fulfill his obligations as a student and guarantee enlightenment.

In this case, it's easy to see that the acts of killing were intentional even though he was unknowingly doing evil, thinking instead that he was doing his duty as a student. And if he had continued on that path, he'd have probably been arrested and executed (and most likely reappearing in bad destination if you believe in that sort of thing); whereas becoming aware of his wrong doing led him to renounce his unskillful behaviour and dedicate his life to practicing the Dhamma, eventually becoming an arahant in the process.

zenff

Okay, so the idea is that when we do something wrong, while knowing it is wrong, we are more likely to change our pattern of behavior.

But this is not how human thinking works, or is it?
Most people always do what is right by their own standards. Most notorious mass murderers in history are like Angulimala I think (or like Anders Breivik for that matter).
When they kill, somewhere they know that killing is wrong, but in their twisted way of perceiving the world it is justified by a higher good.
We are very good at rationalizing our own behavior.

My attempt for an answer is that people have complicated minds and kamma cannot simply be translated as intention. We do most of the harm we do with the best of intentions.
The quote in the OP is a simplification. Moral behavior in real life can be very complicated.

Buddhism has a way of simplifying moral issues anyways.

federica

Thank you everyone for your kind responses... this '10-year old' thinks she's got it...:D

unknowing therefore doesn't mean, unaware.
it means misguided or under a wrong illusion, or unconscious of "wrong View, Wrong Action..."

@zenff just mentioned Anders Breivik... classic example of somebody absolutely convinced that what he did was for the good of his nation and humanity...

this I think clears up my confusion perfectly.

intention.
a small boy is not free from greed, anger etc.

No. @jll, you misunderstand. Read the op and the links again.
That is where my original confusion arose; surrounding evil acts knowingly committed, against evil acts unknowingly committed.
I understand the distinction now.
The former is deliberate and aware, the latter is misguided and blinkered.