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Seeing??
I am reading a book and there is a part in it where a general anecdote is thrown in. It says something to the effect of...
"Say the gestapo knocks on your door. You have someone hiding in your attic from them. The gestapo order you to tell them if anyone is hiding."
The answer is easy enough, don't tell them a thing and hope they go on there way to bother someone else. BUT, you being a Buddhist, have just LIED and know this is something you should not have done. BUT on the other hand, you might have just saved the person's life that is hiding in your house.
This seems almost like a catch 22 in a way. My question is, how do we SEE what the real answer is?
The story above happens almost everyday to us (minus the gestapo of course
), we are faced with the right or wrong question in order to achieve some sort of non-harming way to help someone or something. So how do we see what is "right and wrong" and how do we deal with the potential repercusions even thought we think we might be making the right decision??
"Say the gestapo knocks on your door. You have someone hiding in your attic from them. The gestapo order you to tell them if anyone is hiding."
The answer is easy enough, don't tell them a thing and hope they go on there way to bother someone else. BUT, you being a Buddhist, have just LIED and know this is something you should not have done. BUT on the other hand, you might have just saved the person's life that is hiding in your house.
This seems almost like a catch 22 in a way. My question is, how do we SEE what the real answer is?
The story above happens almost everyday to us (minus the gestapo of course
), we are faced with the right or wrong question in order to achieve some sort of non-harming way to help someone or something. So how do we see what is "right and wrong" and how do we deal with the potential repercusions even thought we think we might be making the right decision?? 0
Comments
_/\_
metta
Since ppl are living while ideals are in the mind, the person always takes priority.
I think that Celebrin has a point, if somewhat exaggerated in his usual emphatic style: what is truth? Does it have a value in and of itself? Is it indivisible? I suggest that it only has a conditioned and contingent value, and must, thus, be subject to other factors.
Literal truth may be factual but may neither represent reality or compassion. The same is true of legality. In the Gestapo example, it could be argued that the law demanded that the fugitive be given up.
Let's recast the case: the person hiding is an Arab who has been denounced as a terrorist and whom you know not to be one. You hide him. The FBI turn up at your door with a nice bright orange suit and a one-way ticket to Gitmo. Now what do you say?
So yes, let's say the gestapo are demanding this person that is hidden, under they pretense they are to be arrested and legally you are obligated to turn them over. Does being a vigilante, and not telling them the person is there, hold bad karma per say. And we're talking the gestapo here, not your local police department.
And in your Arab situation, if I felt I knew the person to not be one, and the officials coming to pick him up are going to senselessly torture him and such than no, I would not tell them he/she was there.
Maybe we should ask ourselves if their is a gradual understanding of the path, rather than either categorically hold the precepts or being enlightend. If an innoncent is to be arrested and it is almost certian that he will be put to death, i see no excuse for handling him over to any authority. If you would, you certainly would contribute to his death and generate bad kamma, that`s how I see it.
It was just a hypothetical question...:hair:
It was just a hypothetical question...:hair: Geez!
:tonguec:
You know, a conversation piece to highlight some of the complexities around following the precepts. Gawd!
j/k
_/\_
First, re the GeStaPo: you may want to take account of the fact that it was Fofoo's nation which was stained by the horrors of National Socialism. To understand, perhaps your example could be a US farmer hiding a runaway from the massacre at Wounded Knee, or a runaway slave escaping to the North. We all have blood-stained pasts. The Nazi example refers to something that was happening within my own lifetime and to my own family. As the German Ambassador remarked a few months ago on BBC Radio 4, it is strange that the Allies cannot let go of the War. He meant the UK in particular but perhaps he doesn't read bulletin boards where Hitlerian starwmen are constantly being set up.
Second, to get back to your question. I think that it is a vital one. "What would I do?" is the way to confront situations compassionately or to test our own compassion. Only in the extreme and limiting cases can we get some handle on how we behave and whether it is how we want to behave. Lying, concealing or altering the truth, fabrications, these are all behaviours that we are taught to abjure. "The truth shall set you free" - but does it? Our Arab refugee would not be set free by our admission and how far would we?
We may, indeed, be wrong. The person we are sheltering may turn out to be guilty after all. We are being asked to make judgments without certainty of our facts or of the outcome. Let us imagine that there is the death penalty for harbouring runaways or that the person is demanded by a lynch-mob. It doesn't change the fact that the refugee is under your roof but it certainly changes the context.
Do you tell the truth now?
And, adding more straw men to the bonfire, does it change your answer if your family is threatened?
These are questions that we all may be called on to address, where there is no escaping the consequence of our actions. And I believe that there is no single, simple answer. We can quote "categorical imperatives" or precepts or commandments till the cows come home but, faced with the reality of the situation, I am truly no longer sure of the answer.
I have had to confront the situation where I had information which could have brought my own child into serious trouble with the police. Right or wrong, I still am not sure, I decided to stay silent, judging that my first duty was to my child. I was, nevertheless, aware of the great classical example, such as the Horatii, or the Jesus story, where a parent gives up their child for the good of the nation.
I think there is no answer to the question until it is asked in reality. Only by throwing ourselves off the cliff can we even attempt to fly.
And like you said, until we see the reality and are in that situation, I guess the answer can never really be given. Unless I read your post wrong?
I do not dispute the worth of "what if cases", what I meant is that one should rather look into the present for cases.
Anyways, I am a strong fan of simple things. Someone comes and wants to arrest somebody. He is at our place.Why do we tell the GeStaPo or whomever what we tell them. This is the question. "I declare volotion is kamma", said the Buddha.
Do we say he is there because we want him see dead? Or because we know that he is guilty for having things done that jusify his arrest? Or simply because we were told not to lie?
First one clearly is ill will and is to be condmned. Second is basically that we answer without ignorance, e.g. we witnessed his deeds and our value system says he must be dealt with accordingly. The third one is selfish to the core. Only because we are afraid of generating bad kamma thru a lie to ourselves, we tell the truth, the answer then is born out of fear for one`s one wellbeing while being ignorant or at least less sympathetic to that of others.
Truth is just in the eye of the beholder. Politics and laws are just a load of crap we are told to be true as a child. People being put to death because of people's views is not truth. 'Lieing' to them is so easy.. if they ask do you have any jews here.. in philosophical terms you can say no.. as labels divide society and we are all men, these are preconcepts given to us as kids. In that case its not a lie.
its like i have never walked or talked, these are but labels given to actions
However, it should also be remembered that if you have taken the bodhisattva vow, that is considered to be a higher vow and always supercedes the vinaya level of vows. In other words, if you need to lie to help someone, like in the example given, the bodhisattva vow would require you to lie in that instance. Lying for self-serving needs, on the other hand, would not be allowed. It's not so simplistic as "thou shalt not lie." That's a different religion.
Does that clear it up?
Palzang
Palzang, your response makes a ton of sense.
Ask yourself WWBD? (What Would Buddha Do?)
I DO hope this is a joke!
Thus, if we are confronted with opposition to the state, it is only a case of "chickens coming home to roost", or karma.
It seems like the conscience in this example knows immediately not to reveal the man because conscience knows that though it be strictly true to reveal the man hiding in your house, it would cause harm, be divisive speech, and putting the man's life, which he has entrusted to you to defend, in the hands of killers. Divisive speech is also a sin, we tend to forget that. Intellect, however, with its ethical formulations, pauses and worries over the lie and opposes the immediate insight of the conscience.
Above and beyond that, we are reminded that attachment to precepts and rituals is counted as one of the fetters inhibitive to the holy life.
Now, we should tell the truth & avoid lying whenever possible, but it seems that the real crux of the matter in these sort of situations is whether our speech is done with a mind of goodwill & whether it results in suffering or joy. In the case originally presented here, it seems that telling the gestapo that you are harboring someone who committed no crime with knowledge that this person will be subjected to cruelty & possibly an untimely death would be out of line with the noble 8-fold path.
Now, if you are harboring a person who is wanted for terrorism, and you feel that he will be treated fairly by the officer at the door, then the situation is different. And if you know he is innocent beyond a shadow of a doubt, then perhaps, even then, it would be unethical to tell the officer, as this person's reputation & livelihood may be destroyed.
On the other hand, if you are a buddha & see that this is the result of past karma & that by letting it expire the through the hands of the gestapo (or Homeland Security) will bring the person to a great awakening or that their presence in the concentration camps will bring hope to a great amount of people & generate significant amounts of merit, then perhaps being honest would be the right thing.
But we are not Buddhas, and so we are pretty much limited to acting with the best of intentions to the best of our knowledge.
_/\_
metta
I heard a version of this story once where a group of soldiers were conducted a house to house search for Jewish refugees. They knocked on the door of a house where there were some Jews hiding. When the owner answered the door, they asked if there was anybody else in the house, to which the owner (an older man I believe) politely asked the soldiers if they would like to take a look around to see for themselves. The soldiers being so politely invited to search the man's house had no reason to be suspicious, so they proceeded on to the next house. In this situation, the man neither lied nor turned those that were hiding over to the soldiers.
Sincerely,
Jason