Hello - All first time poster long time lurker who found this forum and EBTs about 7-10 years after my first Goenka retreat which I’ve attended annually.
I’ve recently started to broaden my understanding of what the Buddha taught and have a laundry list of suttas/topics/books/talks to get up to speed on which I’ve largely all found on this forum so thank you all.
Generally curious how the EBTs would handle ethical quandaries where someone or group of people are subjected to substantial injustice or inequalities by virtue of their birth, and having exhausted all manners to remedy the situation are left with breaking a precept for survival.
I recently read Ajahn Sujato’s post on the war in Ukraine and listened to Bhikku Bodhi’s post on the struggles in Myanmar and while both are clear that there is a negative kamma associated with any type of harm, they point out that harm done for the right intention can be associated with both a bright and dark kamma. Understand that these positions are also contested by various others.
How would the EBT’s ethics handle the following situations: an African American slave in the US south running away (stealing oneself?), someone aiding an African American slave running away (stealing someone else’s property), a peasant’s stealing some food from the land he works on in a feudalist system.
One can then extend from these more egregious injustices to perhaps lighter ones such as say someone is born to a very poor family in a poor country, their family is starving and yet there a small sliver of the population who are fantastically wealthy as they or their families have appropriated all the resources either in present day or in the past, having exhausted all other means of trying to support themselves, would it be wrong to steal some food to feed yourself, family and community?
Then we can extend further, there is massive inequality even in the first world countries, where even the bare minimum requirements of food, shelter, medicine are not met for all children, would it be wrong in this societies for the parents or say even children/young adults to steal to support themselves?
Ah great, those were going to be my first suggestions
Well, I think the EBTs are most clear that the solution is simply for governments to be run by good (honest, generous) people who provide for the welfare of their citizens.
In the suttas, the Buddha encouraged rulers to provide for their people and spoke of the lawlessness and disasters that come if they fail to do so:
let the king provide seed and fodder for those in the realm who work in growing crops and raising cattle. Let the king provide funding for those who work in trade. Let the king guarantee food and wages for those in government service. Then the people, occupied with their own work, will not harass the realm. The king’s revenues will be great. When the country is secured as a sanctuary, free of being harried and oppressed, the happy people, with joy in their hearts, dancing with children at their breast, will dwell as if their houses were wide open.
~ DN 5
when the one deemed chief
behaves badly,
what do you expect the rest to do?
The whole country sleeps badly,
when the king is unprincipled.
~ AN 4.70
So, as with e.g. Russia’s war against Ukraine or the Burmese Military’s war against their own people, the conversation must begin by acknowledging that the bulk of the karma belongs to those in power.
It’s intention that matters. There isn’t any baked in kammic result that can be assessed based on the action performed because it’s solely down to the individual that performs it. To say otherwise would imply another entity or reason determining kamma. So based on the examples you can’t really give a definite answer. Now, of course that’s not to say you can’t have a good idea about the intention behind certain actions but intentions behind someone stealing because they are in a difficult situation would very greatly from person to person. But for sure in a situation like that it’s is going to be a mixture of good and bad kamma.
I think it’s important to recognize that the precepts are not all encompassing and there are plenty of ways to generate terrible kamma without breaking the precepts. There isn’t some extra kammic penalty if you break the precepts they’re just a guideline of what a moral life looks like. I think a lot of people approach precepts like laws that cannot and should never be broken but kamma isn’t like that.
Welcome to the D&D forum! We hope you enjoy the various resources, FAQs, and previous threads. You can use the search function for topics and keywords you are interested in. Forum guidelines are here: Forum Guidelines. May some of these resources be of assistance along the path.
If you have any questions or need further clarification regarding anything, feel free to contact the moderators by including @moderators in your post or a PM.
Thank you bhante for the comments and makes sense that the bulk of kamma for an unjust society would rest with those in power.
I guess what I’m struggling to understand is how should we look at kamma and the precepts in light of the fact that while it’s ideal to have a form government or society that is just, more often that not historically through to the present societies and governments have largely been unjust.
The examples I mentioned of slaves, peasants in a feudal society, or starving children in modern day or one of countless examples one could come up breaking the precepts to steal would be necessary to survive.
Agreed, and therein lies the conundrum I’m getting at.
How should we look at a 5th generation African American slave born into slavery desire to escape. Clearly by the standards of the society then, anyone aiding the slave to escape would be considered stealing as the slave is considered property.
Similarly, let’s say you are born in a 3rd world country in abject poverty in country where the all the resources are hoarded by a few elites. Example you, you’re family, and community are farmers, but all the land and harvest is owned by a few land owners who sell the harvest leaving the community with little to eat. In that situation would stealing some of the food be breaking kamma?
The question I have is how is morality / kamma defined when the circumstances of life bring you into massive injustices.
The examples I provided such as aiding a slave run away or a subsistence farmer stealing some food from a land owner hoarding all the harvest to feed his family to me are clearly morally right, yet if one were to go by do not steal that would be considered stealing as it’s the society’s definition at the time that those are property of the slave owner or land owner.
I personally don’t think that the Law of Karma will punish one by making them a slave by birth or something like that. I think there is another current in this world that does that. One that humanity has to own up to: it’s own wickedness and it’s own consideration of things to do with that are not of Buddha-Nature, but instead it is a focus on craving, on greed, that creates slavery and similar injustices. If you take Karma into effect, it plays a very different role there.
Buddha paves a Way for us out of Karma and out of bad deeds, with 8 important values and Precepts in the Noble Eightfold Path.
Whatever intention, choices, deeds, based upon wrong view, the results are suffering (AN1.314)
One cannot look at intentions alone, one must also see the quality of understanding or view that precedes it, to understand the quality of kamma and the kamma vipaka.
Who does not believe of him/herself that he/she has good intentions? Even dictators believe so. Or soldiers, or people deceiving others because such is good for the company and earning money and feed the children etc.
I believe we also need a larger view to speak of right view and right intentions.
Morality and kamma is defined in the same way regardless of circumstance. It’s defined by and shaped by intention.
Yes it would be considered stealing but the quality of mind and consequences for that person after acting depends on the quality of their intentions performing that act rather than assessing whether it is classified as stealing or not.
Yes I agree. From wrong view come wrong intentions from right view come right intentions.
Well if you have intentions of kindness, compassion and letting go, then you must have some right view there.
Someone acting for the good of their company or country while performing harmful acts wouldn’t be good intentions as actually their actions come from a place of harming. Each time they fire at an enemy soldier, or have wrong speech to political opponents their intentions are not right intentions despite their belief they have ‘good intentions’.
I agree with you. Right intentions have to come from having right view seeing the value in kindness, compassion and letting go while also seeing the danger in acting from hatred or desire.
Now suppose some person is kind to people he/she likes (or somehow serves the same goals/has the same ethics/principles/religion), and is not kind or just indifferent towards people he/she does not like or have another religion etc.
But you meet this persons showinghis/her kindness. Is this kindness based upon right view? Is it Sila?
Suppose there is a person who believes he/she is a Russian. Suppose there is another person he/she believes he/she is a Ukrain. Both, inspired and fired up by their leaders, see this as their true and real identity. Is anything they do based upon these identityviews, based upon right view?
Suppose there is a person whose intentions and deeds are based upon the conceit ‘I am’ . Suppose this is a sotapanna. Is what this person does at that moment based upon right view?
Suppose, all what is based upon wrong view leads to misery. What is exactly the kind of right view I need for my intentions and deeds not being a cause for misery?
Buddhist ethics when applied to those in State of Misfortune
Out of respect for the Buddha we often attribute to him a kind of knowledge or capacity that in truth isn’t central to his great task.
For instance, his teachings are based on a person having their conscience awakened by hearing the Dhamma and then turning around and making an informed choice to change their perspective in life.
People who are in slavery or prison or in States of subjectation do not operate from a position being able to make an informed choice or change. They are simply not optimal subjects.
In the Vinaya section on the second pārājika rule (the one concerning theft) there are the following scenarios:
On one occasion a monk, feeling compassion, released a pig trapped in a snare. He became anxious [i.e., that he might have committed an offense].
“What were you thinking, monk?”
“I was motivated by compassion, Sir.”
“There’s no offense for one who is motivated by compassion.”
On one occasion a monk released a pig trapped in a snare, intending to steal it before the owners found it. He became anxious …
“You have committed an offense [of theft] entailing expulsion.”
The two scenarios are then repeated for various other animals and fish caught in snares or traps. In each case the Buddha’s rulings are the same: a pārājika offence if you take possession of the trapped animal, but no offence if you’re motivated compassion and set the animal free.
By analogy, it would seem, then, that aiding a fugitive slave would be reckoned an act of theft only if your aim were to make him your own slave.
