The Road to Hell

Felipe thinks there is, but whatever, I give up :grinning:

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Why is my son more important that the other people?

The answer comes from the intention, this is the foundation for everything in kamma.

If I give to one of them, I am at the same time not giving to every other person, being, charity that needs the funds.

Where is my mind? The intention?

Am I in my couch thinking: What a great day, I gave nothing to all this people in need.
Or am I saying: What a great day, I was able to give something to someone, it was not all they needed, but I had the opportunity to do it.

You would go crazy thinking about all the other possibilities every time to take one of them.

Broadly speaking, the type of kamma I am making is based on the intention I am having while doing whatever I am doing.

The Buddha was rich, really rich while he lived in the palace, but he created the best kamma when he awakened, far better kamma than giving all of his wealth to the poor.

There is a passage (I think from the Dhammapada) where he speaks about a rich man who gave about 500 carts (this means a lot basically) to the Sangha, but the Buddha says that giving even one grain of rice with pure intention, by his own hand is better than just sending those 500 carts. Which was done by his servants, not by him personally.

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Don’t give up, your task is not to convince me but to understand the teaching for yourself, to follow the path and inspire me (and others) to follow it too.

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It is very hard to understand the seemingly cold act of doing nothing, while watching a busload of people die.

Another example in the suttas which is uncomfortable when first read is UD 1.8 in which Saáč…gāmajÄ« remains silent and still when his wife comes to him and asks him to support his family. If his inaction in this case is praised by the Buddha, then what about the intention to not kill ?

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Something is telling me that the real behaviour of Ven. Saáč…gāmajī’s wife was not as peaceful as described in the Sutta. Something is also telling me that the story of him and his wife discussing his decision to ordain goes back to long before the events in the Sutta :grin:

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Maybe she wasn’t calm, who knows ? But the interesting thing is that all thoughts about taking blame on himself for the plight of his former family seems to have been eradicated in Sangamaji’s mind.

Figuring out all the possible permutations of Kamma is vexing, as advised in the suttas.

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I recently read a sutta, about a holy man who came to a cross road, and sat to rest. Whilst there someone passed by, running away in distress. Soon after came the soldiers pursuing the person and who stopped to question the man at the cross roads. And the correct response to the issue was to do nothing. ie can’t lie to mislead the soldiers, can’t tell them the truth as that would lead to hurt for the refugee.

Apologies for not remembering any further details

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When I first heard of this Trolley Problem it seemed to me that is was generally agreed that the “right” behaviour would be to pull the lever in order to kill one person and save five (or whatever number). To me that wasn’t clear at all!

If there is an accident happening, that is not my personal responsibility in the first place. But pulling the lever and kill (even “only”) one person, that would be my personal responsibility! Who am I to judge which life is more precious? Even if it’s one life versus five? I can’t make this judgement!

And, to make it clear, I would not stand there and be happy about five people having an accident and I am able to “save” one. That’s not the point. I’m not “saving” that one person by not pulling the lever. I am just watching a terrible accident and don’t see a solution in deliberately killing another person
 probably that thought wouldn’t even occur to me.

Making a judgement about the worth of other people’s lives would to me rather belong to the “dark” kamma as already referred to earlier in this post (MN 57).

And thank you everybody for this interesting discussion on a very important topic!

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If it occurs to you that you could pul the trigger, you make a decision to not pull it. By making a decision, you generate kamma. Which kamma that would be is another question, but you are still generating it.

SN 14.12 and SN 14.13, and MN 61 give some good explanations on how starting with an innocent (or not) little thought, it shapes and conditions our thinking pattern, our desires, our habits, our personality, our “self”.

The Buddha frequently advised disciples to see danger in the slightest fault, and whether our thoughts are carried out or not, they are the seed for good and bad kamma. If one is assiduous in destroying bad seeds before they can sprout, it minimizes dukkha.

What are you arguing against here? As much as I can see I didn’t say anything about not generating kamma


You really love debating, don’t you? :grin::stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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Well, this example shows up in a lot of places; I don’t think it’s a Sutta in and of itself. The Dalai Lama has used this example in a few books, and it’s all over the philosophical literature, and has no citations in any case


Anyway, another response could be, “Why do you want to know? What has happened?” Sitting there like a cow strikes me as Jain morality, not Buddhist morality.

Sorry, my bad. No, it is not about debating. It is mostly like an aching tooth that you just cannot help touching, you know?

image

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I tried having a look for it last night. I thought it might be from “The Word of the Buddha” but it isn’t there as a similie. Now I’m thinking it may have been used as an example during sutta classes on the word of the Buddha by Ajahn Brahm.

Regarding your dissatisfaction with ‘doing nothing’ Perhaps ‘self survival at any cost’ is a conditioned value/belief
 worth thinking about, especially if this is a commonly used similie, but still I think the point is that knowingly committing a wrong is never right. ie the means never justify the ends
 the means is, after all, the process of living and the generator of fuel and karma.

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There are a lot of opinions on the supposed solution for the Trolley Problem. Similarly to your understanding of it, the option you mentioned isn’t the best (or least worst choice) at all. The argument (paraphrased) used to counter it is:

If you were to save 5 by killing 1, you might think that was the right choice, but what if you find out after the event that the 5 were escaped convicts, while the one you killed was a doctor who had discovered a cure for cancer?

Yes, but the kamma of the victims’ death isn’t your own. Not doing anything would still be kamma, but it wouldn’t equate to you killing or being responsible for the individuals’ death at all.

Not killing someone, of which killing the person would save multiple people, is not unwholesome kamma—murdering someone, regardless of the result from this, would be.

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https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/lying-definition/

It’s more complicated than that.

For myself, I find that the simpler things are, the better. Humans over-complicate everything. It is what human minds do


When issues become a tangle - inevitably the best solutions come from getting to the essence - discarding everything except for the primary principle.

To be able to ‘act’ in this way is the goal of the path. No Self, No attachment to any outcomes, no expectations, no suffering.

I suppose that is why one can only cease creating Karma when one is an arahat - the rest of us struggle on the hamster wheel - that is the way it is.

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This notion probably arises from the need in our confused and deluded minds to assign blame when trying to comprehend horrific pain. Like how, sometimes, patients in some poor, ill-equipped hospitals take it out on doctors in case something tragic happens.

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Well, they also tend towards oversimplification, racial & gender bias, and all sorts of other problematic heuristics when trying to wrestle with these issues, so much so that clarity of thought often takes a lot of effort for humans to attain.

The essence of these matters is about a proper & suitable ethical philosophy, but the very problem being discussed here involves how to apply such principles to daily moral dilemmas. There is no way to act from a principle without applying it to action in the moment.

You then say that we can only struggle
 well, that seems to be an extreme point of view. As I say, I think it’s complicated, but it nevertheless seems navigable for the majority of day-to-day cases. Checking difficult situations helps to ensure accurate & consistent thinking.

Perhaps this hamster wheel is attached to some belts & pulleys


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