Take the person who when asked by a Nazi officer if their are any Jews in the house tells them that yes indeed their are Jews in the house for fear of breaking the precept with a motivation to save themselves from future suffering; a purely selfish motivation.
Now, take the person who when asked by a Nazi officer if their are any Jews in the house tells them that no their are no Jews in the house with the altruistic motivation to save others from future suffering; an altruistic motivation.
Those who think the first person is superior I think have a very rigid interpretation that does not in fact save themselves from future suffering nor others.
To put it simply: the motivation for not lying matters and the motivation for lying matters. You cannot take the motivation out of the conversation when evaluating either action or non-action. The precepts do not change this fact.
Anyway, this conversation is best fit for another thread that is devoted to it so if you wish to continue can we continue there?
And what it is again leaving out is consideration of the motivation for any action or non-action. The contention is that their are certain actions or non-actions where the motivation does not matter; we can just categorically do this or not do that and the result will always be the same; either positive or negative. That is not in keeping with my understanding of dhamma where motivation most definitely matters. Anyway, can we move this conversation to the other thread please where it is more germane?
My reply to your scenario is to look at what that arahant bravely did. Note: this is not to encourage suicide by being beaten to death by others. Please try to not get yourself in such situations in the first place.
The point seems to be…behind whatever motivation, drive, intention, tendency, plan to do something, there is first a certain view or understanding of situations, or of ourselfves, others, the world. Our motivation is based upon that understanding. If this understanding is wrong, whatever intention, speech, deed …" they undertake in line with that view, their intentions, aims, wishes, and choices all lead to what is unlikable, undesirable, disagreeable, harmful, and suffering. Why is that? Because their view is bad.
Meaning, it is not our intention alone that create a certain future for ourselves and others but most of all the view behind it ! If our understanding is that sense pleasure is happiness, it is such a view that forms our world we live in. We now live in a world which is the result of this view. I do not think that our intentions were bad, but our view is wrong and has creates this world of sense-pleausure .
It is not really intention that shapes our world. View is.
My interpretation is: Buddha did not see conditioning as real change. Conditioning is how samsara works. Only freedom from conditioning is real change. This describes the difference between the mundane Path and Supra Mundane.
Both are, in that right and wrong view are part of the lists of unwholesome vs wholesome (=kammic) deeds. Of course if you see right view as supramundane, then it would override everything else.
This is the lecture on Kamma that I profited from the most.
Yes I share this view. However I am not absolutely sure that it was the Buddha’s. Maybe it was. But contemplating change was one of the big philosophical topics of the era (cf. Plato, Heracleitus, Parmenides etc)
Here is the problem with taking these as categorical teachings.
Consider two persons:
The first person when confronted by Nazi officers asking if they know where the Jews are hiding enthusiastically and greedily answers, “YES! I know and there they are…” going on to describe the exact location of each and every Jew in hiding that they know about and imagining the reward they might get and relishing that the Jews will be punished.
The second person when confronted by Nazi officers asking if they know where the Jews are hiding LIES and answers that they do not know out of compassion for the suffering that will entail if they tell the truth.
In the first case we have someone who has accomplished the action of NOT LYING and TELLING THE TRUTH and thus practiced in line with the teachings according to the precept against lying.
The second case we have someone LYING and NOT TELLING THE TRUTH and thus not practicing according to the teachings.
It seems quite problematic to say that the first person is superior to the second even though they have accomplished the task of the precept against lying while the second utterly failed.
I go further. This person has no idea what the teachings of the Buddha are about. This person is totally lost and enstranged from Buddha and Dhamma. Into such extreme that he/she can only rely on rules. This person is not practicing Dhamma but rules. He/she is enstranged from Dhamma, from his/her own heart.
I think the important point is an enlightening being would be creative in his truthfulness.
It might be a simple mental gymnastic as allocating the place where the family resides as “their dwellings” and so the enlightening being can say “There are no jews in my dwellings.” in good conscience.
It might seem like a pedantic difference, but it matters - because finding truthfulness even in the most extreme situations is part of the training. Incidentally, telling a deliberate lie and telling an honest truth (that may not be what the other person thinks they are hearing) might be the difference of the nazi officer having their spider senses turned on and deciding to search the house anyway.
In the good willed lie, we still subconsciously deliver that we are lying. In the honest truth, there’s no such shame and indecision.
We don’t have to talk about an enlightened being here though just people in general. I’ve undertaken the precept against lying, but it is my understanding that motivation and intention matters.
We could sharpen the hypothetical even further:
The Nazi officer whispers, “If there are Jews in your house say nothing, do nothing, remain completely still so as not to tip them off. If there are no Jews in your house then speak up or move.” One person says absolutely nothing and remains completely still while mentally relishing the reward they will receive and the punishment that will await the Jews. The other person moves or speaks and thereby commits an action of body or speech with a deceptive intention motivated by compassion.
The point is the same. Motivation matters in all of our actions and non-actions. We can’t take away the motivation when evaluating the action or non-action. Creativity is not a fail-safe.
I understand the motivation behind the answer, but again the hypothetical can be sharpened. The point remains the same that motivation matters when evaluating the “superiority” of actions and non-actions.
This intention is consistent with wrong view. Wrong view is on the list of unwholesome deeds. The person has not acted right according to the teaching.
This person didn’t act in line with the teaching.
This is hard to grasp. But I believe this is because he has absolutely no control about the outcome of his actions. It may seem that the Jews are rescued if he lies. But this does not have to be the case. It might be that the Jews are already awaiting them with an ambush and as a consequence, the war would be over.
Kammic actions are only these that are in your power. You are not responsible that there exists a dependently originated world. Your prime responsibility is to not make everything worse, intentional or not. I believe this is what is behind this teaching
Is this agreement then that motivation matters in evaluating the superiority of actions/non-actions? The claim wasn’t that the first person was perfect it was to put into start relief the categorical statement that the first person was better than the second since the second lied.
Or we can understand that the precepts are not categorical and perfect algorithms that somehow alleviate us of the need to be mindful of our motivation in order to make an end to suffering. The first is rule following, the second is developing wisdom and compassion with the aim to eradicate desire, greed and hatred.
Intention refers to the specific aim or plan. The motivation behind the plan speaks to our reasons for forming it.
The first person intends not to lie. The reason behind it is full of desire, greed and hatred.
The second person intends to lie. The reason behind it is not full of desire, greed and hatred.
The first person follows the precept for not lying and the second does not, but it seems some view the first as superior which elevates not lying as an end in and of itself. It is to miss the forest for the trees.
