If you could trace it back and back and back, the question of who hurt who first becomes meaningless, which takes the sting out of it

"There’s a story about Somdet Toh. A young monk came to see him one evening and said, “This monk came up and hit me. I hadn’t done anything to him at all. He just came up and hit me.” And Somdet Toh said, “No, you hit him first.” They argued over this for a while, and then the young monk, frustrated, went to find another senior monk to complain about Somdet Toh, who he said wasn’t listening to reason. So the senior monk came and asked Somdet Toh, “What’s this all about?” And Somdet Toh said, “Well if this monk hadn’t had any kamma with that other monk in the past, the other monk wouldn’t have come up and hit him.”

But then of course that raises the question, why did the first monk hit the second monk, or who hit who first? When you trace it back and back and back, that question becomes meaningless. And the funny thing is, is that making it meaningless takes a lot of sting out of it. The part of the mind that says, “I’ve got to right this wrong,” that holds on to old wounds, gets weakened. The part that gets shamed by having been engaged in a bad back and forth can take some comfort in the fact that everybody’s been engaged in bad back-and-forths. This is why we’re here in the human realm. It’s a realm of good kamma and bad kamma all mixed together."

~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "The Buddha's Safe Space"

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Develop the equanimity of a good doctor who realizes he can't solve all the cases in the world

"When, while you’re trying to develop compassion and empathetic joy, you run across cases where you can’t help the other person, either to become happy or to maintain happiness, that’s when you have to develop equanimity. This is the equanimity of a good doctor who realizes that he can’t solve all the cases in the world. But if he lets his heart get broken over all the cases he can’t solve, he won’t have the energy to help the cases he might have been able to solve. So for the people who come to him and have the karma that allows him to help — and he himself has the karma that allows him to help them — he should think of that as a precious opportunity. It’s not always there. Make the most of it and don’t let yourself get distracted by things you can’t control or where you can’t be of help. Because, as I said, karma is complex. The combination of the patient’s karma to be in a position where he or she can be cured, and the doctor’s karmic connection with that patient: It doesn’t al...
Read more

On the ethics of meat-eating

Question: The precept against killing is often translated into adopting a vegetarian diet. Is this necessary? Aren’t you also killing these poor vegetables, stripping their skin off while they’re still alive and boiling them? Thanissaro Bhikkhu: For the monks, our rule is that we’re not allowed to eat meat if we either know or suspect that it was killed for the purpose of feeding us. The precept against killing is specifically against either killing something on your own or telling someone else to kill. Now, if you want to take the precept further and adopt a vegetarian diet, that’s perfectly fine. But the precept doesn’t require it. Just make sure that when you go to a seafood restaurant and they have a fish tank with live fish, don’t choose any of the live fish. As for vegetables, they don’t come under the concept of sentient being — they don’t feel pain — so the precept doesn’t cover them. We’ve received several questions on the issue of the relationship between the...
Read more

You know that you’ve got some past mistakes. There’s going to be some pain coming in the future. This shouldn’t be news. Having concentration as an alternative to sensual pain and pleasure puts you in a safe place.

"You know that you’ve got some past mistakes. There’s going to be some pain coming in the future. This shouldn’t be news. So you develop the qualities of mind that can guarantee that pain and pleasure won’t overcome the mind. In other words, you develop concentration; you develop discernment. Having concentration as an alternative to sensual pain and pleasure puts you in a safe place." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Remorse"
Read more