I called him an idiot judge.
What they need is tough laws with severe penalties and execution of the law which are not present in countries like India and Sri Lanka. Which is demonstrated by Judge advising people to break the law.
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But thatâs what that book is: instructions for organizing the lives of monks. One canât derive from it a charter for organizing worldly life, a life which the Buddha repudiated and consistently disparaged.
When the Buddha went forth, he wasnât a monk yet. The world said he had obligations. But he quit. He said ânoâ.
The Buddha recognized that people who lived the lower, ignorant, and impure worldly life were entangled in a network of conventional and enforced social obligations. Those are fetters. For those who had not the wits or inner strength to go forth, he offered kindly practical advice. But he never offered some sort of religious charter of legitimation for the worldly, political realm - which he viewed as a meaningless wheel of pain.
The Buddhaâs outlook does not seem to be like that of the social thinkers of medieval Europe and the institutional church of that time. Those people thought society was wisely divided by God into three orders: those who fight, those who labor, and those who pray. Each order was considered legitimate in itself, and had its proper functional place in society. And the whole system functions as long as you have monks praying for the departed souls of the people who had piled up sins in their lives, and helping them get out of purgatory.
The Buddhaâs view of violence and material acquisition was much less accepting. He thought all such people were ensnared by Mara in a debased and impure life that is harmful both to themselves and others. These people are fools and ignorant dullards, to be guided compassionately and gently toward a more noble vision.
"From acquisition as cause
the many forms of stress
come into being in the world.
Whoever, unknowing,
makes acquisitions
âthe dullardâ
comes to stress
again & again.
Therefore, discerning,
you shouldnât create acquisitions
as you stay focused on
the birth & origin of stress.â
- Sutta Nipata 3.12 (a nearly identical passage occurs at 5.4)
Look at the chief lay disciples in the suttas: Anathapindika, Ambapali and the several kings the Buddha converses with. These people are all fools, but compassionately regarded fools. Anathapindika is a wealthy merchant. His daily life is filled with the blind and ignorant piling up of material acquisitions. He is at some level good-hearted, and so has some vague understanding that he is doing some kind of good by giving to the sangha. But despite the fact that he has been assisting the sangha for years, it is not until he is at deathâs door, and hears from Sariputta the dhamma that the monks hear every day, that he finally understands the fundamental purpose of the holy life he has been supporting for all that time.
Ambapali is a courtesan. She lives in a world of lust and desire, made up like a puppet, singing and dancing and love-making, and turning on the endless wheel of sensual craving, sensual gratification and sensual disappointment. Late in life she goes forth, and then looks back poignantly on the transient absurdity of her earlier life:
https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/kn/thig/thig.13.01.than.html
The kings are the most pathetic figures, ensnared deeply in a cruel life of power, suspicion, war, intrigue, murder, conquest and punishment from which they canât escape. The daily doing of severe harm is part of their chosen livelihood: the livelihood of the will to power, supremacy and control. The better ones travel into the forest to look longingly on the freedom of the Buddha, a freedom that comes from an utter lack of worldly attachment and entanglement. And then they return abjectly to their world of violence and pain.
The Buddha seems to have regarded the political life of the earlier republics as somewhat superior to the politics of the rising kingdoms. There is some greater degree of voluntariness; some lesser degree of employment of the rod of violence. But even that republican life is dusty and deluded, much consumed with organized fighting and wealth-accumulation and control over others. And so the Buddha gave it up.
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Itâs a sign of desperation. The whole system is dysfunctional - essentially each man for himself, engaged in a lifelong struggle to survive. Tax money that should be spent on medicare and infrastructure is instead squandered and looted by whole squadrons of politiciansâŚ
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Very well said, @DKervick. The whole of the Buddhaâs Teaching is centred on asceticism and renunciation of family, society and the world. All the systems and social structures conjured up by people are just left behind altogether. But this age seems to be obsessed with âprogressâ, with no time to pause and examine if the means can justify the ever-moving goalposts of greed and acquisition.
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Itâs interesting, @Sujith, because a similar historical development can be found in the history of Christianity. Jesus of Nazareth recommended that his followers leave their mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, and follow him to await the coming Kingdom of Heaven. Some did so, and in doing so set themselves at odds with the norms of Roman-dominated society in the Mediterranean world. But in the space of only a few hundred years, this movement of drop-outs and martyrs had become the state religion of Rome, and was safely legitimized and domesticated within the imperial system. The followers of the crucified God had expanded to include the religious underwriters of the system of the crucifiers.
I suppose a religion that is âsuccessfulâ in worldly terms ends up with its core message and practice community being co-opted and absorbed as âfunctionalâ parts of some larger worldly system.
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As I understand it, there is no law to say one must pay tax. I have heard that former employees of the IRS (internal revenue service) in the USA found out they were not required by law, to pay tax, so they stopped and nothing was done about it.
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Interesting.
I am not sure whether a small fish like you and I get away from it.
Only a big fish can challenge it.
Perhaps in above case, maybe it is too small for IRS to worry about it.
I always wonder how Donald Trump did not lodge his tax returns and still became the US president.
I own a business that was audited by the IRS years ago, and whatever the actual law says the IRS seems to believe they have the right to examine everything and make their own decision about how much you should pay 
Definitely felt like it was the opposite of the usual rules for the legal process âinnocent until proven guiltyâ. They treat everything like you are a criminal until you can prove you arenât . Maybe they need to do it that way because people lie so often on taxes (I am being very honest here and saying I do not lie on taxes and pay my fair share). In the end it was fine, but it left me feeling certainly like this is how the Buddha talked about âkings and thieves taking your moneyâ. Accordingly I have never thought about the 2nd precept having anything to do with paying taxes. They need to be paid or you will end up in trouble.
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