The future can never come. Nothing is ultimately real, so when people talk about violence, I notice the violence their using right now against reality. Why would you be afraid of reality? Reality is benign for those who can see clearly.
To me evil means confusion. Anyone who thinks that evil exists is frightened and therefore confused. And I knew that everything is welcome here, everything… There is nothing terrible in the world. Evil is just one more story to keep us from opening to love. What I know is that God is everything and God is good.
These are quotes from Byron Katie’s book A Thousand Names for Joy. It’s an amazing and powerful book. I’ve read it through at least five times. One can dip into any paragraph of the book and it’s like receiving life-giving waters.
I’ve written both critiques and praises of Katie. I chose the quotes above to illustrate her view of evil. It’s not only her view but also the prevailing New Age and postmodern view of evil, which is basically that evil doesn’t exist. There are no absolute values. All values are thought-constructed. This is a natural consequence of society which lost faith in the Absolute. No God, no values, it’s simple. The monotheists are right when they maintain that without an absolute law-giver, all laws remain relative and subject to our whim and fancy.
Katie maintains there’s no evil in the world, it’s only our thinking that makes it appear so. I ponder this point and don’t know what to say about it. On one hand, I understand the reasoning. Without thought naming something so, it doesn’t exist in that way. This is Buddhist philosophy. It doesn’t mean that there’s no cause and effect (karma). In other words, if you kill, you’ll receive the appropriate karmic response; however, neither the killing nor the karma therefrom are inherently good or bad. The Buddha preferred the words “skillful” and “unskillful”, which are morally value-free words. They describe facts: it is unskillful to kill, meaning killing causes pain and suffering for oneself and others. There’s no value judgment there. Pain is pain. And we say it’s bad because we don’t like it.
But what to make of Katie’s view? Is there really no evil? Is the sex-trafficking of twelve-year old girls not evil? Are suicide bombings not evil? They’re “God” – certainly no God any Christian, Muslim, or Jew would recognize – but Katie calls these acts “God”. For her these acts constitute God as much as giving flowers to your mother on her birthday.
What happens when we sit at the door of a brothel in small shanty town in Cambodia and some twelve-year old girl who is a slave is being repeatedly raped day and day out? It’s reality, true. (It’s an empty tautology to say that “What is is reality.”) Are there any consequences to our “seeing through”, our dismantling of the notion of evil? Would we be less inclined to act in such circumstances?
I don’t know. But I do worry about deprogramming ourselves to see the world without conceptual filters. I worry that this teaching is so popular because it’s so easy and feels good.
And I wonder what would’ve happened two thousand years ago if Jesus taught what Katie taught. Because like Christianity or not, much of what we value about our culture comes from the teachings of that Nazarene preacher: human rights, charity, helping the poor, optimism about the future, fighting oppression, equality of all human beings, the arts, education, and philosophy.
What I’m getting at is ideas have consequences. I’m not sure what kind of world Katie’s ideas would produce. After our transformation into Zen masters, which Eckhart Tolle and many others of his ilk propose and say is happening now, will our culture survive? Will we be able to keep the birth rate up (if not, society will collapse)? Will be able to defend the freedoms and rights that we’ve fought so hard for and now take for granted?
Somehow I doubt it.
This bothers me, and it should concern you too.
Kate says in her book that there is no evil, its only in our perceptions that we have a concept of “evil.” Let me speculate; I think this will accurate. If I were to rob Kate of her money and/or possesions, rape her, and leave her brutaly beaten, she would go to the police and have me arrested. Suddenly the evil done to her would merit my spending a lifetime in prison, just punishment for the evil I’ve done. You can’t say there is no such thing as evil, and then claim anyone has done you wrong. Moral relativism works great until you are the victim; then you seek restitution. If I stole Kate’s purse, I find it hard to believe she would define that as God.
My second argument is that if we define a concept, then that concept exists. Does evil really exist, or is it our perception? Well, there are many abstract ideas and thoughts that no one argues are not real. If I miss the bus and end up being late then I’m very angry. Anger isn’t a thing in a test tube than I can measure, but no one argues that anger isn’t real. Stay awake long enough and you will get tired. Is it your perception that you are tired? Yes, actually it is. But it’s still the reality that you are tired. And it’s not God. Evil doesn’t exist like heat or light exist, it is a condition, an attribute perhaps. But it does exist.
And finally, having sex with a 12-year-old sex slave is evil. Kate’s book claiming otherwise is not admisable as evidence in any court of law in this nation. And if our society does eventually colapse when the notion of evil is no longer believed in, perhaps it’s partially Kate’s fault for causing society to change their thinking. That’s just evil Kate.
Does evil exist? Sure it does. Ask the Buddha…….he summarized his entire teachings based upon these concepts…….
“To avoid all evil
To do good.
To purify one’s mind.
This is the teaching of all the Buddhas.”
- Dhammapada, XIV, 5
i think he used “evil” not in an absolute way but simply as a dumbed down way to get people going in the right direction. it’s also possible that the translations don’t effectively convey his original teachings. and even if he did use it in that way just because he said it doesn’t make it true. just some thoughts!
In Buddhism there is no “evil” like in the monotheistic traditions. There’s ignorance, which creates unskillful actions which leads to states which we consider “evil” — war, rape, killing, stealing, etc. Even evil spirits are just confused, lacking understanding of karma and the three marks of existence (selfless, transient, unsatisfactory).
Basically, Katie’s “evil” is the same as the Buddha’s — it’s all ignorance/confusion.
Funny.
You quote some of the Buddha’s most famous words, and people tell you that (1) he didn’t quite mean it like that, (2) the translation is all wrong, and (3) he himself might have been wrong! That is funny!
“By oneself, indeed, is evil done; by oneself is one defiled. By oneself is evil left undone; by oneself, indeed, is one purified. Purity and impurity depend on oneself. No one purifies another.” (Dhammapada, chapter 12, verse 165)
Funny.
You quote some of the Buddha’s most famous words, and people tell you that (1) he didn’t quite mean it like that, (2) the translation is all wrong, and (3) he himself might have been wrong! That is funny!
“By oneself, indeed, is evil done; by oneself is one defiled. By oneself is evil left undone; by oneself, indeed, is one purified..” (Dhammapada, chapter 12, verse 165)
I suppose, if this is the Buddha’s ‘dumbed down’ teaching then I’m glad of it because it makes perfect sense to me.
If the non-dumbed-down teaching leads to ideas that the rape of children (as in Joe’s example in his origional post) is not good or bad but ‘just is’, then I want nothing to do with it.
All the best,
Marcus
“In Buddhism there is no “evil” like in the monotheistic traditions. There’s ignorance, which creates unskillful actions which leads to states which we consider “evil” — war, rape, killing, stealing, etc. Even evil spirits are just confused, lacking understanding of karma and the three marks of existence (selfless, transient, unsatisfactory). ”
Sure, I see that, and agree. ‘Evil’ is not some kind of outside independant force separate from us and our actions.
But that doesn’t mean we ditch the word! When we see terrible things happen, we still call it for what it is.
In the contention of the Dhammapada, the Buddha does speak of evil. However, the contextual issue is what he means by it and how we relate to it.
The Buddha refrained from “good” and “bad” because they were judgments of quality. He preferred words like: skillful and unskillful, pleasant and unpleasant, conducive and unconducive. Nevertheless, he was often translated for using the word evil.
The problem is that we are reading evil in the Western-Christian context of demonic hatred and destruction. In the Buddhist context “evil” just means bad.
For example: In the Sigalovada Sutta “The Layman’s Code of Discipline”– evil is describe as results.
What are the vices of evil? “Killing, stealing, lying and adultery, These four evils the wise never praise.”
“But inasmuch as the noble disciple is not led by desire, anger, ignorance, and fear, he commits no evil.”
So while the translation is accurate– the understanding of evil is not.
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