Background_intro 2008

Why we choose the theme

Last year, when we were speaking about the Kalama Sutta, about right and wrong and how relative it can be, how much we have to learn to trust our personal experience. One family camper asked ”But isn't there real evil in the world?” And I realised that it would be good to do a theme on GOOD AND EVIL this year, to understand better where it all comes from.

Personally, I really don't like the word evil. Evil is such a strong judgement and easily brings up fear in people, because in our experience, we link it with sin, punishment, war, and atrocities. If we enter the belief that there is a devil or evil forces out there which want to tempt us and destroy us, then we lose our common sense and self confidence and easily submit to authority which wants to defend us from evil if we just do what they say ... This is why some politicians try to convince us to think in terms of good (WE) and evil (THEY) and start war.

So, what is a helpful understanding of good and evil?

Following the Kalama Sutta, I would say that GOOD is everything which leads to pleasant or at least to not harmful results for myself and others, and BAD or EVIL is everything which leads to painful results for myself and others. And you all know the universal guideline which comes from this understanding

Never do anything to somebody else of which you wouldn't like that it was done to yourself. Or: Treat others as you want to be treated yourself.

If we can keep this universal guideline in mind, everything else follows from that, the precepts, awareness, and the end of confusion .

Behind assumptions of good and bad is our liking and disliking, our needs and what we don't want or are frightened of. That's part of life and needs attention. But what happens when we name it 'good' and 'bad'? It can become judgement, and often that means that we are no longer open to other people's needs and how to negotiation or respond to different needs .

The idea of the theme good and evil, is that we are shining a light on what is good and bad, so you get to see what judgements you may have around this. The other part is the way it is and this is how we are going to hold this investigation. So we can make the movement into action from this place – because then we know the way to respond to the situation.

So when I talk about this, Ifeel excited about it, exploring values and need to support this in a safe way so please - listen ---we want to make it very clear that it is ACTIONS that bad or evil, its not people. That way we can explore this safely.

So we can celebrate goodness and recognise when things dont go quite according to the way we think it should be.

Notice how we attend to – what do we really what to attend to...

that is where choice is coming in and how to skilfully respond to the situation.

This is a creative process – we first listen – wait and then respond, and this attitude of inclusiveness help us to understand who we are. Where the word understand means to stand under – stand under what – its humility rather judgement. Its is a recognition not a judgement as Ajahn Sumedho says.