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How would you react to direct violence?
Let's say you are walking down the street.
A guy suddenly appear.
And he slap hard across your face,
took away your hat,
make funny face with tongue out,
and run away,
while you suffer from painful, bloody face.
Which action would you choose to take?
A. Total revenge
You get so mad and decided to take extreme measure to punish and destroy him. You chase after him and beat him severely. You hire someone to track him down and hurt him and destroy his home as a mean of teaching him a lesson.
I think most of us won't give in to such extreme anger but it happens. I would refrain from revenge. We have to learn the lesson from Milarepa. He made a mistake and sort of regretted it.
B. Moderate anger
You got slapped and your hat is stolen. It does not feel good. You choose to feel angry. You keep thinking of him and wish that he will face misfortune. You whine that you had an unlucky day. Your mood is dark and face is black.
I think this is a natural and reasonable reaction to get angry in this way. Most people will choose this. If not for Buddhism, I'll choose this option.
C. Compassion
You shed tears for him, knowing that he's creating bad karma for himself. You grow compassion for him hoping that he'll wake up from his samsaric ignorance and wish him all the best. You choose not to give in to anger and hold on to compassion.
I'm practising this. My initial reaction is choice B, but when I realize my anger arises, I consciously choose C. It's not an "automatic" reaction but with practice it'll get easier. It's not easy to love your enemy.
D. Impermanence
You see this event as an illusion of sunyata. You perceive him beyond good and bad, as a bad person will change to good and vice versa. You don't hold grudge for things are impermanence. Enemy will change to friend. You pain will heal and your hat will come to you when you buy a new one. An event will subside and become calm again like nothing happens. This is your choice of seeing.
E. Emptiness
You see through the true nature of such event as emptiness and you remain in your zen like realization and stay cool.
F. Buddha
You choose to perceive that the person who slapped you is the buddha. His action is perceived as dharma to teach you a lesson. You thank buddha.
G. Calm and rational
You choose to keep your head cool, go to the police station (the proper channel) and make a report about the incident, and continue your life.
So what's your choice?
I'm not going to judge right/wrong on each choices.
A guy suddenly appear.
And he slap hard across your face,
took away your hat,
make funny face with tongue out,
and run away,
while you suffer from painful, bloody face.
Which action would you choose to take?
A. Total revenge
You get so mad and decided to take extreme measure to punish and destroy him. You chase after him and beat him severely. You hire someone to track him down and hurt him and destroy his home as a mean of teaching him a lesson.
I think most of us won't give in to such extreme anger but it happens. I would refrain from revenge. We have to learn the lesson from Milarepa. He made a mistake and sort of regretted it.
B. Moderate anger
You got slapped and your hat is stolen. It does not feel good. You choose to feel angry. You keep thinking of him and wish that he will face misfortune. You whine that you had an unlucky day. Your mood is dark and face is black.
I think this is a natural and reasonable reaction to get angry in this way. Most people will choose this. If not for Buddhism, I'll choose this option.
C. Compassion
You shed tears for him, knowing that he's creating bad karma for himself. You grow compassion for him hoping that he'll wake up from his samsaric ignorance and wish him all the best. You choose not to give in to anger and hold on to compassion.
I'm practising this. My initial reaction is choice B, but when I realize my anger arises, I consciously choose C. It's not an "automatic" reaction but with practice it'll get easier. It's not easy to love your enemy.
D. Impermanence
You see this event as an illusion of sunyata. You perceive him beyond good and bad, as a bad person will change to good and vice versa. You don't hold grudge for things are impermanence. Enemy will change to friend. You pain will heal and your hat will come to you when you buy a new one. An event will subside and become calm again like nothing happens. This is your choice of seeing.
E. Emptiness
You see through the true nature of such event as emptiness and you remain in your zen like realization and stay cool.
F. Buddha
You choose to perceive that the person who slapped you is the buddha. His action is perceived as dharma to teach you a lesson. You thank buddha.
G. Calm and rational
You choose to keep your head cool, go to the police station (the proper channel) and make a report about the incident, and continue your life.
So what's your choice?
I'm not going to judge right/wrong on each choices.
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Comments
In a way that's not wrong.
That's why Shaolin monks learn kung fu to defend.
LOL....
It sounds like "emptiness" There is no spoon zen-like philosophy.
I lose nothing. The sun and moon is there for me....
hehe... monks are cool and peaceful.
But lamas still wear red/yellow hats.
EDIT: The above of course is assuming he did all of this and made good his escape before I had a chance to properly react. If he continued the attack or just stood there I would defend myself to the point where if it came down to it, I'd do whatever possible to make sure I was the one still alive after the confrontation. If he just stood there with my hat, I'd ask for it back. If he refused, I'd try to snatch it back without harming him. If he continues to refuse... THEN I would go on about my business.
Precisely
Are the same option
Imagine a rape victim having compassion for the raper? It's beyond ordinary. But it's that quality that makes a person go transcend into spiritual enlightened being.
When the Taliban regime destroyed the ancient Buddha statue, it was sad.
But the Buddhists around the world choose not to succumb to violence, and that really makes me proud to be a Buddhist.
Of course, we shouldn't fall to the extreme of letting people take advantage over us. There's a limit. There's the middle way. We have to be shaolin monks too. That's why we have wraithful guardians to protect Buddhism.
Yeah I agree with you.
But sadly, in real life, there are still many people who will choose A.
I'm saddened to know that there are huge mass of people who are angered by small issue or manipulated by some propaganda become violent and destructive.
Being spiritual , Buddhist or other, doesn't mean being a passive doormat as some wish to believe. That would be pure yin. let alone being a coward. I believe that to have balance you would have to exert the yang. This would be accordance with the Tao.
If it happened like this I would probably be stunned at first that something so random happened.:wtf: Then some combination of choices D, E and G is probably how I would react. Of course, I've never had anything like this happen so who knows?
Before starting on the middle path, I would have chosen choice B. :grumble:
So I'm sort of in agreement with Zayl here. Just a random event - shrug it off and carry on. We had appointments to keep....
And I chose: "I don't know" - because every situation is unique.
Would you just defense the necessary? Or would you "teach him a lesson or two"?
:P
I heard some monks are not suppose to use umbrella too.
How they shield from rain and sun while moving around?
Thank you. It is a bit of warrior pride, self respect, and necessary defense, but not revenge. I just look at it this way. If someone tries to hurt me physically with bad intention they're going to realize that they picked a fight with the wrong person. In the direct moment I would strike them down in defense. But if they tried to run away from me, and outran me I would forget about it, and not seek revenge.
I'll chase the man and try to 'play'( a more violent play) with him, and take my hat back. Aikidoing the thief is mandatory.
Well, this thing happened to me some years ago. A guy, a former colleague of mine ( who is now the biggest loser in my high school) stole my hat and ran away, trying to prove his friends who was walking with that he is a tough guy. The man ran as fast as he could, but I , being more faster than him managed to get pass by him, and I put my leg i nfront of him, so he nearly fell, and I took my hat back. No violence, no thought to destroy that person.
Cheers, WK
I'd simply be confused (or stunned, as somebody else said above) and be looking up in the sky for the next fifteen minutes to see where that strange comet came from. I'd fill out a police report and identify the assailant as an extraterrestrial at large.
I don't think I could ever forget such a strange, almost comical occurrence.
Aside from the direct violence scenario raised here (which is strange to be called direct, in that it seems almost aloof), I'm not so good at indirect violence, though. I really should take Ativan before seeing most movies —They seem so real to me.
That's just it! There is something seriously wrong with people who get all violent. When one really, really needs to vent they could do it "outside" in free space or take it out on a punching bag or something.
However, with anger we lose 80% of judgment, which leaves people with poor judgement with practically zilch. Yes, there is something seriously wrong with someone who cannot control his fists. You gotta feel sorry for the poor fella, and hope that somebody teaches him a better way of coping.
You're exactly right, in this scenario we haven't even done anything to provoke the attacker, which adds to the insanity of him, which gives us ever more reason to feel sympathetic towards him.
Yes, absolutely, whenever I am angry I make an effort to lock myself away in solitude so I'm incapable of doing anything that could hurt something while my judgement is clouded, and only re-emerge when my anger has passed and I'm capable of thinking rationally.
Also, what he has done does not have very much effect on me at all, not nearly enough to yield as a physical retaliation. I mean, it's just a slap, and a hat. It doesn't really matter, getting angry about that will not achieve nearly as much as staying cool would. I do however believe you have a duty to inform the police so they can take measures to try and prevent this from happening again.
I've seen some pretty hostile encounters between people involved in minor traffic accidents before, too. I guess they're upset about being delayed and the damage and all, but hey, it coulda been a tragedy! With their rage boiling over they lose sight of the fact that maybe a little gentle regard showing sympathy for the loss involved might be more endearing and saving of the day. Not only is it so sad that we throw such opportunities away, but we add insult to injury!
Above all, do no harm! Believe in the power of patient forbearance to bear fruit.
You chase the guy through the city. He gets away. You search wildly for him. You come around the corner and see the creep walking along wearing your hat, as if nothing happened! You hit him as hard as you can, take your hat back, and run away laughing.
While he's standing there stunned, a man with a clip-board walks up and says, "Excuse me, I'm conducting a survey..." A few blocks away, you realize this is not your hat.
Buddha bless,
Conrad.
And I'd go somewhere, sit down and wait until I stopped shaking before I tried to continue.
It reminds me of a good friend, a woman who not only had a black belt, she taught classes. She used to brag about how she was trained and felt safe from attack walking alone on the streets, because she was prepared. One day, a man jumped out at her from a doorway while she was walking down a sidewalk, grabbed her by the shirt and broke her jaw with one punch, then stole her purse and ran off while she lay on the ground, barely conscious. It took a long time for her to regain any degree of confidence. She said the lesson she had to learn was, nobody can prepare for the unexpected. That's why it's called the unexpected. You don't expect it.
After reading the posts, I believe my true answer is "fear." (After fear might come anger) I will not effectively defend myself as I have no skills and would go down easily.
If I was defending another, I might bring a fury that would mask my true weakness and confuse my assailant. Alone I would most likely take a beating and be glad when the perp was gone.
Anyhow i would smile and move on with my life.
(and probably spend the next hour trying to calm my wife)
no anger, just compassion to begin with.
You don't grow compassion. If you have to grow compassion it means you try to overcome another reaction like anger or sadness.
You just have understanding and compassion already.
That does not sound like the behaviour of a black belt, they should not be bragging about anything. To shy on giving the benefit of the doubt to your friend, maybe you misinterpreted what was said? Anyway, one thing that martial artists should know for certain, especially a high grade, is that 1) there are no guarantees, 2) there is always some better, and 3) luck (from a non Buddhist POV) or karma (from a Buddhist POV) always has an impact.
Part of the result of training to become a black belt should be increased awareness and increased intelligence such as not being in the wrong place at the wrong time, or at least minimising these opportunities.
Cheers, WK
Possible, because it was a long time ago, and it was during at time when the whole group of us were doing some hard partying. People do say things over a tabletop of empty beer bottles that they would have the good sense not to say elsewhere.