Evil and ignorance
zenguitar
Bad BuddhistNew England Veteran
Greetings, skillful Sangha. In my understanding of Buddhism, a person may end up committing evil (or unskillful) actions because the person is ignorant of the true nature of reality, and this ignorance leads them to perform harmful actions because they just don't know any better. Assuming my understanding is correct, I am not sure I can completely buy this argument for all forms of evil committed by people.
For instance, if a person does not fully understand how to operate a car, I can understand how the person might end up hurting people unintentionally by driving the car erratically, not being able to apply the brake in time, etc (if they can even start the car at all). The driver is not really a bad person; they just don't know what they are doing. But what about a person who intentionally and repeatedly commits actions to hurt or kill people, without remorse? I'm talking about really horrible and inexcusable acts, like first-degree murder and even genocide, which are planned out in a careful and calculating manner by people with a lot of cleverness but zero compassion. Is this really just "ignorance" or is there something more actively malicious going on here?
Comments
On the surface, I'd say there's malicious intent but I think the behavior is learned.
Also I still would say the problem is ignorance because they are not only far from awake but are living a nightmare even if they find what they do enjoyable or worse, righteous. I don't think they see how when they hurt others, they hurt themselves.
I use evil as a label as much as the next guy but for actions, not people. Too many people in the world are led to believe they are not good enough (for what I don't know) and cannot be saved (from what I don't know).
Yeah, I think it's just ignorance but hey, we learn as we go.
@zenguitar
While there is some room for overlap
I see ignorance as the lack of comprehension about sufferings causes
and evil as a love of causing that suffering.
Interesting way of thinking of it @how.
I was listening to a radio broadcast yesterday about what some of the ISIS fighters are doing in Iraq, and it was one of those rare times when the concept of "evil" popped into my head
You could say ignorance causes maliciousness and maliciousness causes people to intentionally murder, etc. But that is really not different from saying the killing was caused by ignorance. Because if it were not for ignorance, there would not be maliciousness to begin with. And if there is no maliciousness, there would be no intentional killing.
According to Buddhism, all evil actions have ignorance as the first cause in the chain of cause and effect. There might be other links in between the first cause and the final act but the whole chain of events begins with ignorance. It is a "dependent origination" and it all depends on the presence or absence of ignorance.
whether he is an innocent driver or malicious murderer they 'do not know what they are doing'
this is the ignorance
if one is skillful one does not harm oneself or others
@zenguitar, I'm not willing to place all the blame for "evil" on ignorance because I think that is a little egotistical (not on your part...just the concept, in general). It's sort of saying, "You do this evil thing because you don't have my view of the world", or "You do this evil thing because you don't understand Buddhism". (Again, the "you" is not you).
But, some "evil" is done willfully, knowing full well societal norms (and in fact may be done to refute societal norms...including Buddhist societal norms) by very intelligent and well-read people.
But, I thank you for originating this thread. It's interesting.
Some people mistake virtue for poison and vice versa. That is the worst kind of karma. It is very probable that they will go to the lower realms on their next birth.
Thanks everyone. I guess what I'm trying to understand (which I've never really understood even when I was nominally Christian) is how love/compassion can be used to save/assist everyone--including the worst evildoers--in achieving salvation/enlightenment. I can understand how this could help a relatively "softcore" evildoer, say, someone who had an unhappy childhood, got involved with drugs, mugged someone in order to buy drugs, and ended up in jail. I can see how such a person might be re-educated (sometimes) by a compassionate system interested in reforming individuals rather than just punishing them. Maybe they have a chance to turn themselves around. But I don't see how compassion or love could change a Hitler or a Himmler, or some deranged serial killer. To me those hardcore guys are just beyond the pale.
But then again I am wallowing in ignorance myself, so what do I know?
Remember that the change might have to happen over thousands of lifetimes! I agree that some people are beyond the pale.
I suppose that could be true. I guess I'm too attached to this current body/lifetime, maybe because I have some doubts about rebirth. So I just want to save my skin and get as far away from the bad guys as possible. Some Buddhist I am! I guess I have a lot of work to do...
It's a good idea to stay safe! I'm not sure if there are rebirths either to be honest. But I don't think some people can reform in one lifetime. For one thing the karma they make can lead to their own demise as in 'live by the sword die by the sword'.
@zenguitar
But I don't see how compassion or love could change a Hitler or a Himmler, or some deranged serial killer. To me those hardcore guys are just beyond the pale.
I guess I'm too attached to this current body/lifetime, maybe because I have some doubts about rebirth. So I just want to save my skin and get as far away from the bad guys as possible.
A believe in rebirth is not needed to find your answer
Beyond how we allow the narrow dictates of our skandhas to position everything on one side or the other of an imaginary line separating self and other, lies the simple answer to how anyone's good or evil is ultimately shared.
There is only the dream of our innate separateness from existence and the waking up from that dream.
Within that dream, we are subject to the adversarial reasoning's that say that Hitler and you, are two completely separate expressions of life.
Beyond that dream is an awakening to a freedom from conditioned thought and to a heart wide enough to know that anyone's grace and delusion can touch anyone else's.
This can be experienced within the framework of anyone's sincere meditative practice and can be simply evidential without a need to believe or disbelieve anything.
Of course, now that I've explained an alternative path to the same place, you have to wonder if it's the easier route or not.
There is something more actively malicious going on here
.
I don't think Buddhism 'says' all unskillful acts (including evil) are due to a person not knowing any better. BudDHISTS might say that (and so does Eckhart Tolle, with whom I deeply disagree based on personal experience).
It is frightening to face how vulnerable we are to being deliberately harmed by members of our own species. I think there are 'attempts' to minimize the threat of harm, and I've seen society go back and forth between 'all people are essentially good' and 'some people are essentially bad'.
See it doesn't MATTER whether there is or is not 'evil' or just 'unskillfulness'. That is missing the point altogether. What is happening right in front of your face? THAT is what matters! Wondering why or what it 'really means' is a ridiculous and sometimes dangerous delusional state to get into.
It reminds me of the Buddha's story about the land owner who was shot with an arrow while walking his land's perimeter. When family and friends attempted to aid him, he refused to let them pull out the arrow until he found out exactly WHO shot it, and incidentally, what kind of wood the arrow was made from.
Evil is evil and it damages and the pain is real, so what else is there to say about it? Any more clever concepts and mind games we can do with it? Oh what fun.
I think it is somewhere in Christian literature (???? someone correct me, I'm sleepy tonight) that says "The law is made for man. Man was not made for the law"
Trying to fit what seems to not fit into a "buddhist" concept is like assuming that life will be a certain way if you can only just figure out what way that will be. Like life is made for the law. Look around you and just see. That is what is going in, period end of story.
I think you can say that all "evil" can be blamed on ignorance. Precisely because of the implications of a mind that has no ignorance. For example, if you have a mind that is filled with ignorance and you remove the ignorance, what's left? It's not just nothingness. A mind that has no ignorance is a mind that naturally has certain qualities, a couple of which are naturally occurring love and compassion.
A mind without ignorance is said to be wise. All wise people are naturally loving and compassionate because that is what lies underneath the ignorance. If the ignorance is removed, all that love and compassion naturally and spontaneously comes fourth.
You could say non-ignorance = wisdom, wisdom = love and compassion. Therefore, non-ignorance = love and compassion. It's impossible for someone whose mind is filled with wisdom, love and compassion to go around committing evil acts!
I'm sure there is a point where the ignorance has gotten too much of a strangle hold on some but I don't buy into the concept that some are born "evil".
Learned evil is learned ignorance. Learning to show no compassion for any one of our brethren is also a lesson in ignorance.
A lack of compassion can be contagious so be careful using the word evil too much.
Showing compassion is strength. Not showing an evil doer compassion only slows down your progress, not theirs. And of course, to be compassionate is not to be a doormat.
@Hamsaka;
You brought up Christianity... Jesus said that how you treat the lowest of you is how you treat him...
What do you think he meant by that?
And no offense but I think you got the arrow story backwards. Who shot the arrow is unimportant compared to getting it out.
Please forgive me for posting three times in a row. I was about to bring this up in another thread of yours about Thich Nhat Hanh but only because it seemed relevant to this one.
It's one of his poems which I think illustrates the need for unconditional compassion.
Coincidentally, it also reveals the only real concept of God I find logical but that's another thread.
Call Me by My True Names
Do not say that I'll depart tomorrow
because even today I still arrive.
Look deeply: I arrive in every second
to be a bud on a spring branch,
to be a tiny bird, with wings still fragile,
learning to sing in my new nest,
to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower,
to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.
I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry,
in order to fear and to hope.
The rhythm of my heart is the birth and
death of all that are alive.
I am the mayfly metamorphosing on the surface of the river,
and I am the bird which, when spring comes, arrives in time
to eat the mayfly.
I am the frog swimming happily in the clear pond,
and I am also the grass-snake who, approaching in silence,
feeds itself on the frog.
I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones,
my legs as thin as bamboo sticks,
and I am the arms merchant, selling deadly weapons to
Uganda.
I am the twelve-year-old girl, refugee on a small boat,
who throws herself into the ocean after being raped by a sea
pirate,
and I am the pirate, my heart not yet capable of seeing and
loving.
I am a member of the politburo, with plenty of power in my
hands,
and I am the man who has to pay his "debt of blood" to, my
people,
dying slowly in a forced labor camp.
My joy is like spring, so warm it makes flowers bloom in all
walks of life.
My pain if like a river of tears, so full it fills the four oceans.
Please call me by my true names,
so I can hear all my cries and laughs at once,
so I can see that my joy and pain are one.
Please call me by my true names,
so I can wake up,
and so the door of my heart can be left open,
the door of compassion.
Thich Nhat Hanh
In general, and for simplicity's sake, one can say that ignorance of the four noble truths is one of the primary aspects that conditions our unskillful behaviour. Some people do things impetuously, without much thought, unmindful of the presence of greed, hatred, and delusion in their minds when they act; some people act out of greed, hatred, and delusion because it produces a short-term pleasure, ignorant of the long-term suffering that such actions might engender; etc. Ignorance, however, isn't some sort of first cause; it's just one link in the mental chain of suffering that we cause ourselves and others through our unskillful actions of body, speech, and mind.
Well written, Jason. It says so much more than just referring to "ignorance".
The kind and/or amount of compassion, patience, wisdom, and love necessary to change a Hitler or an Angulimala may be exponentially more than any of us possess, but I don't think that it's impossible to change someone or their path in life. And because of that, I don't think we should cease trying to be that source of compassion, patience, wisdom, and love.
Thanks, @jason. Just to demonstrate how bad a Buddhist I am, I have always found the Angulimala story to be a bit incredible. But I guess I just need to keep meditating and practicing a lot harder...
Well, I don't think anyone should see themselves as a bad Buddhist simply because they're new to the practice or have trouble buying certain aspects at face value. In fact, I think it's healthy not to. Even the Buddha recommended a healthy skepticism in these regards. That said, I'd caution anyone not to take such stories as completely accurate depictions of actual events, but rather suggest seeing them more as a means of imparting certain ideas for us to contemplate as well as ideals for us to strive towards.
I must have left something out of what I wrote, because my point WAS that getting the arrow was the moral of the story, rather than waiting to find out who shot it first. Sorry 'bout that.
OK . . . so what do I think Jesus meant when he said 'how you treat the lowest of you is how you treat me'. For me this is very clear, face value. Humans have long devalued and discarded the malformed or substandard, the weak or sick or 'unique' or whatever out-group we come up with. Jesus' message is that the Christ is in each regardless of the outward appearance or your judgment of them.
It IS incredible for most of us. There are people who wreak havoc and do very antisocial things and end up in prison -- and in that environment, truly repent. There are as many who know what it 'looks like' when someone truly repents and then proceed to fool and manipulate without having had a true change of heart.
The latter are the people I have had personal experience with, much more than the former. In their own minds they've done nothing wrong to repent for. Taking another person's life or belongings or whatever are justified. They simply don't care, they don't have whatever it is within them that makes us care.
They are evil (or at least their acts will be). But that they are (or I think they are) doesn't MEAN they ought to be lethally injected or executed, as @Ourself put to me, they are the least of us. Compassion and kindness is our 'obligation' so to speak as it would be for any other. Here we get into 'idiot compassion' versus skillful compassion, which is another story.
Kia Ora @zenguitar,
Evil and ignorance
I view Ignorance purely and simply as "Not Knowing"
If one thinks of "Dependant Origination" then it all stems from ignorance ....Even if one is somewhat ignorant of ones own ignorance-example a mentally unstable person like a sociopath ...
"Whoever sees Dependant Origination sees the Dharma-Whoever sees the Dharma sees Dependant Origination !"
But I could be wrong.............................
Metta Shoshin .
..
I'm not trying to argue but he was also speaking of those in prison.
Idiot compassion would be to just let them go free but that isn't what I mean.
The Noble Eightfold Path is the roadmap to lift the veil of the Ignorance that makes us stumble on the same stone again and again and incur in Dukkha.
The antidote to Ignorance would be working to develop Insight, Wisdom or Right View.
Love, compassion, empathy are implied in the development of Wisdom.
As we tread the path and begin to see the interrelatedness of all aggregates, we can't fail to notice that my neighbour's welfare impacts on my own.
So after working on the cessation of my personal suffering, I realize that helping minimize other people's suffering is a circle that closes back on my own person (whatever "my own person" means in Buddhist terms - that's stuff for another thread).
Since Christianity has been brought up, when Jesus was been mistreated by the soldiers on the way to his Crucifixion, he said, "Forgive them, Father, for they don't know what they are doing," the idea of Evil related to Ignorance.
From a spiritual point of view, standing on higher ground, evil acts are looked down as being stemmed in Ignorance, simply because as we develop insight, as we deepen on our feelings of empathy toward our fellow human beings, unskillful acts exerted to cause suffering are viewed as the product of a clouded mind.
My understanding is that the words Father, forgive them for they know not what they do was uttered from the cross. I believe the synoptic gospels support this.
Well, whatever the circumstance (it's ages since I last touched a Christian book), the fact remains that Jesus uttered those words.
Good point, the 'least' are also the people who are ostracized for being destructive and damaging to others.
I can respect the Christ (so to speak, or the Buddha nature) of the serial killer or child molester. I'm not going to go up to them and give them a big ole kiss or let them babysit my grandchildren. I will gladly pay my taxes to support the prisons and make contributions to volunteer organizations who go into prisons and provide vipassana training, literacy classes, or whatever psychological tweak of the day is supposed to 'fix' their sociopathy and reduce their tendency to re-offend. I might not even want to look at them, I might feel extreme aversion to them and I'll just remind myself I ain't a Buddha yet, and I won't beat myself up about it. If someday after many more years o practice I find I have no aversion that will be fantastic.
I have taken care of prisoners who were hospitalized. One was a female who gave her grandson methadone because he was easier to take care of unconscious. He died, and when she figured out how much trouble she would be in, she made a half assed suicide attempt. She was the most chipper patient, enjoyed whatever attention she could get, and displayed not one iota of regret, sadness or depression -- even when she mentioned why she was hospitalized.
Ironically, the prison guard assigned to her was a total jackass and bullied her right in front of us. We reported him to his chief officer and he was actually fired.
So it's not all just what I THINK I would behave like or feel like when confronted with such a person. I have been. In the moment, it is like dealing with ANYONE. It's only when you walk out of the room and your monkey mind starts in, or the gossip starts in the breakroom that this person 'becomes' some disgusting dark creature impossible to relate with.
From Luke:
what we can do or have to do is talk to ourselves and say 'forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing'
Thanks everyone, these are insightful comments and they give me a lot to mull over.
I've heard the point that if you are 100% aware you will not do anything unwholesome. (Intentionally)
You will see the sensation and thought arise objectively. You will realise these are non self, impermanent and cause suffering. Why would you blindly follow them? You wouldn't.
Our unwholesome actions are due to our conditioning. AND us not seeing it as thus.
I feel so truly blessed to have found the path out of this dark forest of ignorance. Thank you all!
@Hamsaka;
Thanks for the thought provoking reply. I just wanted to add that my point isn't really that we should show a cold blooded abuser compassion for their sakes only but for all of us.
I think I could even bring myself to kill a person like that if that's what it took to stop their chain of abuse but at the same time, I wouldn't stop loving them unconditionally.
This may sound odd but when I think of the Bodhisattva vow, I think of Saving Private Ryan. I do also have a different idea on rebirth/reincarnation (the difference is meaningless to me) so I think our essence or what have you evolves towards awakening.
In my heart I feel that for any of us to awaken to our true nature in the most absolute sense, the last of us must awaken.
In a weird way, I think Buddha saw/sees it happen.
What does this unconditional love 'look' like? Genuine question, and I realize it may not be easy to put into words.
I have spent a little time thinking about the Bodhisattva vow and the teachings around that, only a little because to date I've spent more time with Theravada and it's western incarnations. Eckhart Tolle would agree with this. He, in so many words, states that awakening has always been in the eventual outcome of the deathless/formless taking form. In that way, the deathless/formless can meet itself, see itself, know itself and then carry onward with awareness.
@Hamsaka;
I can say what it feels like to me but not sure if that can help you see it the way I do. It's more than kinship and more than feeling that each and every one of us is a part of me.
It's like we are all reflections of each other and the world we are sharing.
A lot of what Tolle says resonates with me and I feel I can relate to the guy. I think he has it down but I wouldn't compare him to another just as I couldn't say whether I think the Dalai Lamas approach is better or worse than Thich Nhat Hanh. Both are great teachers and I feel they both have it down but such different styles!