by Tom
Recently I listened to an impassionate defence of the concept of evil by a committed and knowledgeable Christian thinker and activist, prompted by the rhetoric of the recent American election. He argued that ‘evil’ is indispensable not only to the functioning of democracy but the human community in general.
On the other hand, at our last zazen meeting we discussed Thich Nhat Hahn’s poem ‘Please Call Me by My True Names’ in which he points out that we all possess the potential to commit atrocities as well as to perform virtuous acts. This view is put into practice in his Plum Village, where a visitor has remarked that he heard talk not of evil people but rather of those who were “mistaken,” “ill-informed,” “heedless,” “unskilled,” “unaware” or “unmindful.”
A writer in the Buddhist magazine Tricycle observes,
the story of good and evil sells because it is simple and easy to understand, yet from a Buddhist viewpoint it can be dangerously deceptive. It keeps us from looking deeper, from trying to discover causes. Once something has been identified as evil, no more is there a need to explain it, only a need to fight it…
By contrast, Buddhism focuses on the three unwholesome roots of evil, also known as the three poisons: greed, ill will, and delusion. In place of the struggle between good and evil, Buddhism emphasizes ignorance and enlightenment. The basic problem is one of self-knowledge: do we really understand what motivates us?
In short, by focussing on greed, hatred and ignorance we separate the act from the actor. It is our failure to deeply recognise the underlying condition of our human existence that clouds our minds. Instead, we can learn to see the reality behind the all-too-human smokescreen of the ‘self-centred dream’. This does not entail passive acceptance of destructive acts, which must be opposed – it is simply a separation of the act from the actor.
The other day I happened to talk with a policeman whose job involved 18 years of interviewing people who had committed murder. He told me he had never encountered an evil person, just people whose life circumstances had conspired to lead them toward those heinous acts that must be dealt with by our legal system. As we are reminded in the ‘Faith-in-Mind’ text, ultimately we live in a ‘nondual world’, a world in which greed, hatred and ignorance (or attachment, avoidance and apathy) exist – but not evil. We cannot blame our own shortcomings or those of others on any outside forces but must take personal responsibility for our own behaviour, language and thinking. We thus begin our zazen sessions with a ‘Purification’ that declares
All the harm and suffering ever created by me since of old,
On account of my beginningless greed, hatred and ignorance,
Born of my actions, speech and thought,
I now acknowledge openly and fully.
Some references:
https://www.abc.net.au/listen/
https://theconversation.com/
https://tricycle.org/magazine/
https://tricycle.org/