Good

EVIL

and

The Way It Is

can you find theevil?

A Buddhist perspetive

From Ajahn Sumedho.... Mind Conditions the World

In the Ovada Patimokkha, the Buddha says "Do good, refrain from doing evil, purify the mind."

Do good is the first - thats the rising up, isn't it? In our lives, there's the active side - right speech, right action, right livelihood. To really perfect those three, the moral part of our path, is always a matter of rising up. You don't sink down to do good, you rise up to it. There is a lot of inertia, and just not wanting to be bothered and scepticism and cynicism and laziness and doubt and despair, all this pulls us downward. And so the way out is not to reject or just fight them out of fear or aversion - that pulls us down - but to understand the whole process of rising up.
read more here.

"Monks, these three are causes for the origination of actions.
Which three?
Greed is a cause for the origination of actions.
Aversion is a cause for the origination of actions.
Delusion is a cause for the origination of actions.
read more here
or the mula sutta here

"But is there, my friend, a path, is there a way to the abandoning of that passion, aversion, & delusion?"
"Yes, my friend, there is a path, there is a way to the abandoning of that passion, aversion, & delusion."
read more here

Good and Evil in Buddhism - Ajahn Payutto - read it here

read on line - Good, Evil and Beyond -Kamma in the Buddha's Teaching - P. A. Payutto

"By what is the world enveloped?
Because of what is it not known?
With what do you say it is soiled?
What is its great fear?"
read more here

Right view

..When, friends, a noble disciple understands the unwholesome, the root of the unwholesome, the wholesome, and the root of the wholesome, in that way he is one of right view, whose view is straight, who has perfect confidence in the Dhamma, and has arrived at this true Dhamma... read more on line here

Nourishing The Roots Essays on Buddhist Ethics by Bhikkhu Bodhi here

GOD, BUDDHISM AND THE TSUNAMI by S. Dhammika read it here

On the Nonduality of Good and Evil: Buddhist Reflections on the New Holy War read it here and
also published on http://www.wickedness.net/

Freedom from Fear by Thanissaro Bhikkhu here

CHOICE

"...Just as a skilled carpenter or his apprentice would use a small peg to knock out, drive out, and pull out a large one; in the same way, if evil, unskillful thoughts — connected with desire, aversion, or delusion — arise in a monk while he is referring to and attending to a particular theme, he should attend to another theme, apart from that one, connected with what is skillful...
read more here

Mindfulness

Ajahn Sumedho Interviewed Interview by Roger Wheeler

RW: Yet mindfulness itself is not a wholesome factor.

AS: Neutral. It does not belong to anybody. It is not something one is lacking; it is not a personal possession.

RW: There are wholesome and unwholesome mental factors, and there are factors which are always present, like mindfulness. Mindfulness is not innately good.

AS: It is awareness of good and evil as change. By using the wisdom factor of discriminating alertness (satipañña), one sees the conditions of good and evil as impermanent and not-self. This mindfulness liberates one from the delusion that these conditions tend to give.

more here

from HAPPINESS & HUNGER by Buddhadasa Bhikkhu

The thing to observe in this matter is that it is impossible to attach to good and evil when there's no knowledge of good and evil. When there's no attachment, there's no dukkha and no problem. Once the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil has been eaten, however, there is this knowledge of good and evil. What happens then? If we lack the wisdom (pañña) to know that we shouldn't attach to good and evil, we'll go and attach to the good and evil of common sentient beings. Thus, there is dukkha, which brings with it all the problem of life. These are the results of eating that fruit: attachment, dukkha, and death.

Once there is this knowledge, there is no going back to a state of innocence in which good and evil aren't known. After this knowledge arises, after the fruit has been eaten, we must go on to know fully that good and evil cannot be attached to. It is our duty and responsibility to learn this. Don't attach to good and evil because they are impermanent (anicca), unsatisfactory (dukkha), and not-self (anatta). Good and evil are anicca, dukkha, anatta.

About good and evil

click on image to see where image came from

”The knowledge of good and evil is hidden in man”
Socrates

LOOK Good and evil - an art project with philosphical quotes have a look here

LISTEN - From Atma - the Album Beyond Good and evil here

THINK - Could Buddhists Condem Harry Potter? - here or Vatican debates good versus evil of Harry Potter

READ - The Science of Good and Evil: Why People Cheat, Gossip, Care, Share, and Follow the Golden Rule
by Michael Shermer - amazon - youtube

MOVIE - maybe - The movie The Departed ...urges one to question what is good and what is evil. Is it always clear-cut? read a review here from the Buddhist channel.

Want a headache? - here