Say yes to goodness

For each human being there is a date, unknown to all and to himself above all, but entirely determined, after which the soul can no longer keep its virginity. If before this precise instant, eternally marked, it has not consented to being taken by goodness, it will immediately be taken by evil.

A man can give himself over to evil at any moment in his life, for one gives oneself unconsciously and without knowing that one is introducing an external authority inside oneself; the soul drinks a narcotic before it gives its virginity. It is not necessary to say yes to evil to be seized by it.

But goodness only takes the soul when it has said yes. And the fear of the nuptial union is such that no soul has the power to say yes to goodness until it is pushed urgently by the almost immediate approach of the limiting instant where its fate will be fixed for eternity. For some the limiting instant can take place at the age of five, for others at sixty. In fact, it is impossible to situate it either before or after having passed through it, for the instantaneous and eternal choice only appears refracted by the passage of time. For those who have let themselves be taken by evil long before approaching the limiting instant, this instant no longer has any reality. The most a human being can do is to keep intact within him the faculty of saying yes to goodness until he is very near to it.

Simone weil

A tale told by Socrates

Listen, then, as story-tellers say, to a very pretty tale, which I dare say that you may be disposed to regard as a fable only, but which, as I believe, is a true tale, for I mean to speak the truth. Homer tells us , how Zeus and Poseidon and Pluto divided the empire which they inherited from their father. Now in the days of Cronos there existed a law respecting the destiny of man, which has always been, and still continues to be in Heaven,—that he who has lived all his life in justice and holiness shall go, when he is dead, to the Islands of the Blessed, and dwell there in perfect happiness out of the reach of evil; but that he who has lived unjustly and impiously shall go to the house of vengeance and punishment, which is called Tartarus. And in the time of Cronos, and even quite lately in the reign of Zeus, the judgment was given on the very day on which the men were to die; the judges were alive, and the men were alive; and the consequence was that the judgments were not well given. Then Pluto and the authorities from the Islands of the Blessed came to Zeus, and said that the souls found their way to the wrong places. Zeus said: 'I shall put a stop to this; the judgments are not well given, because the persons who are judged have their clothes on, for they are alive; and there are many who, having evil souls, are apparelled in fair bodies, or encased in wealth or rank, and, when the day of judgment arrives, numerous witnesses come forward and testify on their behalf that they have lived righteously. The judges are awed by them, and they themselves too have their clothes on when judging; their eyes and ears and their whole bodies are interposed as a veil before their own souls. All this is a hindrance to them; there are the clothes of the judges and the clothes of the judged.—What is to be done? I will tell you:—In the first place, I will deprive men of the foreknowledge of death, which they possess at present: this power which they have Prometheus has already received my orders to take from them: in the second place, they shall be entirely stripped before they are judged, for they shall be judged when they are dead; and the judge too shall be naked, that is to say, dead—he with his naked soul shall pierce into the other naked souls; and they shall die suddenly and be deprived of all their kindred, and leave their brave attire strewn upon the earth—conducted in this manner, the judgment will be just. I knew all about the matter before any of you, and therefore I have made my sons judges; two from Asia, Minos and Rhadamanthus, and one from Europe, Aeacus. And these, when they are dead, shall give judgment in the meadow at the parting of the ways, whence the two roads lead, one to the Islands of the Blessed, and the other to Tartarus. Rhadamanthus shall judge those who come from Asia, and Aeacus those who come from Europe. And to Minos I shall give the primacy, and he shall hold a court of appeal, in case either of the two others are in any doubt:—then the judgment respecting the last journey of men will be as just as possible.'

From this tale, Callicles, which I have heard and believe, I draw the following inferences:—Death, if I am right, is in the first place the separation from one another of two things, soul and body; nothing else. And after they are separated they retain their several natures, as in life; the body keeps the same habit, and the results of treatment or accident are distinctly visible in it: for example, he who by nature or training or both, was a tall man while he was alive, will remain as he was, after he is dead; and the fat man will remain fat; and so on; and the dead man, who in life had a fancy to have flowing hair, will have flowing hair. And if he was marked with the whip and had the prints of the scourge, or of wounds in him when he was alive, you might see the same in the dead body; and if his limbs were broken or misshapen when he was alive, the same appearance would be visible in the dead. And in a word, whatever was the habit of the body during life would be distinguishable after death, either perfectly, or in a great measure and for a certain time. And I should imagine that this is equally true of the soul, Callicles; when a man is stripped of the body, all the natural or acquired affections of the soul are laid open to view.—And when they come to the judge, as those from Asia come to Rhadamanthus, he places them near him and inspects them quite impartially, not knowing whose the soul is: perhaps he may lay hands on the soul of the great king, or of some other king or potentate, who has no soundness in him, but his soul is marked with the whip, and is full of the prints and scars of perjuries and crimes with which each action has stained him, and he is all crooked with falsehood and imposture, and has no straightness, because he has lived without truth. Him Rhadamanthus beholds, full of all deformity and disproportion, which is caused by licence and luxury and insolence and incontinence, and despatches him ignominiously to his prison, and there he undergoes the punishment which he deserves.

Now the proper office of punishment is twofold: he who is rightly punished ought either to become better and profit by it, or he ought to be made an example to his fellows, that they may see what he suffers, and fear and become better. Those who are improved when they are punished by gods and men, are those whose sins are curable; and they are improved, as in this world so also in another, by pain and suffering; for there is no other way in which they can be delivered from their evil. But they who have been guilty of the worst crimes, and are incurable by reason of their crimes, are made examples; for, as they are incurable, the time has passed at which they can receive any benefit. They get no good themselves, but others get good when they behold them enduring for ever the most terrible and painful and fearful sufferings as the penalty of their sins—there they are, hanging up as examples, in the prison-house of the world below, a spectacle and a warning to all unrighteous men who come thither. And among them, as I confidently affirm, will be found Archelaus, if Polus truly reports of him, and any other tyrant who is like him. Of these fearful examples, most, as I believe, are taken from the class of tyrants and kings and potentates and public men, for they are the authors of the greatest and most impious crimes, because they have the power. And Homer witnesses to the truth of this; for they are always kings and potentates whom he has described as suffering everlasting punishment in the world below: such were Tantalus and Sisyphus and Tityus. But no one ever described Thersites, or any private person who was a villain, as suffering everlasting punishment, or as incurable. For to commit the worst crimes, as I am inclined to think, was not in his power, and he was happier than those who had the power. No, Callicles, the very bad men come from the class of those who have power (compare Republic). And yet in that very class there may arise good men, and worthy of all admiration they are, for where there is great power to do wrong, to live and to die justly is a hard thing, and greatly to be praised, and few there are who attain to this. Such good and true men, however, there have been, and will be again, at Athens and in other states, who have fulfilled their trust righteously; and there is one who is quite famous all over Hellas, Aristeides, the son of Lysimachus. But, in general, great men are also bad, my friend.

As I was saying, Rhadamanthus, when he gets a soul of the bad kind, knows nothing about him, neither who he is, nor who his parents are; he knows only that he has got hold of a villain; and seeing this, he stamps him as curable or incurable, and sends him away to Tartarus, whither he goes and receives his proper recompense. Or, again, he looks with admiration on the soul of some just one who has lived in holiness and truth; he may have been a private man or not; and I should say, Callicles, that he is most likely to have been a philosopher who has done his own work, and not troubled himself with the doings of other men in his lifetime; him Rhadamanthus sends to the Islands of the Blessed. Aeacus does the same; and they both have sceptres, and judge; but Minos alone has a golden sceptre and is seated looking on, as Odysseus in Homer declares that he saw him:

'Holding a sceptre of gold, and giving laws to the dead.'

Now I, Callicles, am persuaded of the truth of these things, and I consider how I shall present my soul whole and undefiled before the judge in that day. Renouncing the honours at which the world aims, I desire only to know the truth, and to live as well as I can, and, when I die, to die as well as I can. And, to the utmost of my power, I exhort all other men to do the same. And, in return for your exhortation of me, I exhort you also to take part in the great combat, which is the combat of life, and greater than every other earthly conflict. And I retort your reproach of me, and say, that you will not be able to help yourself when the day of trial and judgment, of which I was speaking, comes upon you; you will go before the judge, the son of Aegina, and, when he has got you in his grip and is carrying you off, you will gape and your head will swim round, just as mine would in the courts of this world, and very likely some one will shamefully box you on the ears, and put upon you any sort of insult.

Perhaps this may appear to you to be only an old wife's tale, which you will contemn. And there might be reason in your contemning such tales, if by searching we could find out anything better or truer: but now you see that you and Polus and Gorgias, who are the three wisest of the Greeks of our day, are not able to show that we ought to live any life which does not profit in another world as well as in this. And of all that has been said, nothing remains unshaken but the saying, that to do injustice is more to be avoided than to suffer injustice, and that the reality and not the appearance of virtue is to be followed above all things, as well in public as in private life; and that when any one has been wrong in anything, he is to be chastised, and that the next best thing to a man being just is that he should become just, and be chastised and punished; also that he should avoid all flattery of himself as well as of others, of the few or of the many: and rhetoric and any other art should be used by him, and all his actions should be done always, with a view to justice.

Follow me then, and I will lead you where you will be happy in life and after death, as the argument shows. And never mind if some one despises you as a fool, and insults you, if he has a mind; let him strike you, by Zeus, and do you be of good cheer, and do not mind the insulting blow, for you will never come to any harm in the practice of virtue, if you are a really good and true man. When we have practised virtue together, we will apply ourselves to politics, if that seems desirable, or we will advise about whatever else may seem good to us, for we shall be better able to judge then. In our present condition we ought not to give ourselves airs, for even on the most important subjects we are always changing our minds; so utterly stupid are we! Let us, then, take the argument as our guide, which has revealed to us that the best way of life is to practise justice and every virtue in life and death. This way let us go; and in this exhort all men to follow, not in the way to which you trust and in which you exhort me to follow you; for that way, Callicles, is nothing worth.

From Gorgias (Plato)

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Letter of the pious man

Now my son, may G-d place you among those that will hear and listen, and that listen and think, and that think and know and do, and not among the people who drown in error, who are drunk with the wine of foolishness, which the evil inclination has enslaved them, and ruled this world over them, and which the lusts have overpowered them, and swayed them towards the pleasures, and enticed them to the desires, and drawn them to coveting. And they, in their darkness are smitten, and swiftly move dazzled in their error, they hear but don't lend ear, they say but don't do . They sought the pleasures but fell in the frustrations, endeavored to reach the pleasing, but reached instead the hard suffering, their soul is tired, and their body is weary. Their minds are empty, and their understanding is shattered. They hoard gold to be lost and fleeting silver, which becomes an inheritance to their enemies or to their traitorous wives. They erect mansions and lie down in graves. They build and don't dwell, they amass and don't spend, each man among them buries his father and his son (i.e. someone older and someone younger than himself but does not put to heart the day of his own death ), yet still does not do religious deeds which endure forever. He forgets his end, but remembers his desires, what will you say of a middle piece, which lost both end pieces, and of a child whose parents abandoned him?

Look my son, at whose heart the Creator has broadened, and who G-d has helped him to rule over his thoughts, opened his eyes for what is good for him, showed him the straight path, and drew him close to it. People are assured of him, and he is assured of them, he is at peace with them, and saved from them. People serve their evil inclination, but he serves the G-d of heaven and earth, who grants life, who brings death, the Creator, who is gracious, and there is no god besides him.

Look at the difference between them (the men who serve their evil inclination ) and the men with pure interiors (who serve G-d) - their eyes are at rest (unlike the desirers whose eyes are always scanning to spot desirous things they enjoy and to afterwards strive to attain them ), their hearts are secure (they are not worried or pained by anything ), and in their solitude, they delight in remembering G-d, thank Him for His goodness in all their situations, who quickly grasp all forms of deep wisdom, who ripped off the veil from their eyes (the [inner] eyes of the intellect ) which prevents seeing the interior ways, and reached the true tranquility through their toil(to conquer their lusts ), their tranquility led them to delight, their desire does not distract them, nor does their long life make them procrastinate. They are zealous to prepare for the day of death, and from what is after it, they prepare, call to G-d, seek Him, hope to Him, and serve Him, They speak truth, converse righteousness, without fear of the Sultan, and without being ruled by the Satan. They are more precious (to G-d) than any man, and more guarded than any nation, their splendor and grandeur is greater than all of them, honored in the houses of G-d, and great in the eyes of men, nothing distracts them away from remembering G-d, and nothing prevents them from thanking Him, their tongue is habituated in praises and thanksgivings, and their hearts are full of purity and unity.

This world disguised itself but they recognized it, and they tread it and told of it, its deception was not hidden from their eyes, neither was its fraud concealed. This world adorned itself to them with beautiful garments (enticed them to pursue the enchantments of this world), but they considered it naked and empty, it deprived them (of livelihood to), but it was forced (to provide for them their basic need in its proper time since they trusted in G-d ), it tried to befriend them (with wealth), but they scolded it, it tried to sway them, but they distanced from it, they gazed at its evil deeds, and understood its disgraceful acts, and it has no dominion over them, and nothing with which to approach them. They are the choicest of G-d, the pure ones, and the treasured of the pious, possessors of discerning eyes, noble desires, favored deeds, who dug after G-d and became rich, did business with Him, and profited, purified their hearts and became pure, who equipped themselves with fear of G-d in the path of evil and were saved, they rode the wagon of piety and arrived, met with the eternal joy, and the delight which never erodes, were spared from the assembly of judgment, and were saved from the punishments .

And you, my son, choose the good for your soul, before the regret which will not avail, and the worry which will never end.
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Ibn Pakudah

A grindstone and an orchard

Evil can be compared to a grindstone. When we use a grindstone everyday we do not notice it getting used up, until one day we realize it has become much smaller. Evil people are like the grindstone, you do not see from the surface that it is being worn out, but actually it is wearing
out daily. Good people are like the orchid, you do not see it grow, but actually it is growing everyday. If you do evil deeds, do not imagine no one will find out.You cannot escape from cause and effect or even your own conscience.

So do not worry about not getting good results for the moment. Just look at the flowers and grass in the garden. It seems you cannot see them grow, but bit by bit, they come to full blossom. There is a saying which goes, “When one
is kind others take advantage of him, but the heavens will not. When one is evil people are afraid of him, but the heavens are not”.

Venerable Master Hsing Yun

Iron's rust

अयसाव मलं समुट्ठितं [समुट्ठाय ], ततुट्ठाय [तदुट्ठाय ] तमेव खादति।

एवं अतिधोनचारिनं, सानि कम्मानि [सककम्मानि ] नयन्ति दुग्गतिं॥

Just as rust — iron's impurity — eats the very iron from which it is born, so the deeds of one who lives slovenly lead him on to a bad destination.

Buddha (Dhammpad)

becoming just and holy, living by wisdom

Since Evil is here, "haunting this world by necessary law,"

and it is the Soul's design to escape from Evil, we must escape hence.

But what is this escape?

"In attaining Likeness to God," we read. And this is explained as "becoming just and holy, living by wisdom," the entire  nature grounded in Virtue.
 
Plotinus

EVIL

Be quick in doing

what's admirable.

Restrain your mind


from what's evil.


When you're slow


in making merit,


evil delights the mind.




If a person does evil,


he shouldn't do it again and again,


shouldn't develop a penchant for it.


To accumulate evil


brings pain.






If a person makes merit,


he should do it again and again,


should develop a penchant for it.


To accumulate merit


brings ease.




Even the evil


meet with good fortune


as long as their evil


has yet to mature.


But when it's matured


that's when they meet


with evil.






Even the good


meet with bad fortune


as long as their good


has yet to mature.


But when it's matured


that's when they meet


with good fortune.




Don't underestimate evil


('It won't amount to much').


A water jar fills,


even with water


falling in drops.


With evil — even if


bit


by


bit,


habitually —


the fool fills himself full.






Don't underestimate merit


('It won't amount to much').


A water jar fills,


even with water


falling in drops.


With merit — even if


bit


by


bit,


habitually —


the enlightened one fills himself full.

Like a merchant with a small


but well-laden caravan


— a dangerous road,


like a person who loves life


— a poison,


one should avoid


— evil deeds.

If there's no wound on the hand,


that hand can hold poison.


Poison won't penetrate


where there's no wound.


There's no evil


for those who don't do it.

Buddha

सुप्पबुद्धकुट्ठिसुत्तं

चक्खुमा विसमानीव, विज्‍जमाने परक्‍कमे।

पण्डितो जीवलोकस्मिं, पापानि परिवज्‍जये’’ति॥


A person with good eyes,



encountering


a treacherous, uneven place,


would try hard to avoid it.


A wise person, in the world of life,


should avoid


evil deeds.


Buddha

 "Kutthi Sutta: The Leper" (Ud 5.3), translated from the Pali by Thanissaro Bhikkhu. Access to Insight, 8 July 2010, http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/kn/ud/ud.5.03.than.html.

Of Music and Harmony

This morning the music of a brass band which had stopped under my windows moved me almost to tears. It exercised an indefinable, nostalgic power over me; it set me dreaming of another world, of infinite passion and supreme happiness. Such impressions are the echoes of paradise in the soul; memories of ideal spheres, whose sad sweetness ravishes and intoxicates the heart. O Plato! O Pythagoras! ages ago you heard these harmonies—surprised these moments of inward ecstacy—knew these divine transports! If music thus carries us to heaven, it is because music is harmony, harmony is perfection, perfection is our dream, and our dream is heaven. This world of quarrels and bitterness, of selfishness, ugliness, and misery, makes us long involuntarily for the eternal peace, for the adoration which has no limits, and the love which has no end. It is not so much the infinite as the beautiful that we yearn for. It is not being, or the limits of being, which weigh upon us; it is evil, in us and without us. It is not all necessary to be great, so long as we are in harmony with the order of the universe. Moral ambition has no pride; it only desires to fill its place, and make its note duly heard in the universal concert of the God of love.

Amiel

Resist not Evil

Often one wonders at this saying in the Bible, and it is not always given the right interpretation. To interpret it, the first thing is to explain what evil means. Is there any particular action, is there any particular thing that one can point out as being evil? No doubt man is always apt to point out a certain action as evil, but nothing can be evil according to a fixed principle. What then is evil? It is something which is void of harmony, which lacks beauty, something from which love is missing. Beyond and above all, it is something which does not fit into the accommodation of life. What fits into the accommodation that life offers cannot be evil; it is the characteristic of evil that it does not fit into it.
Evil may be likened to fire. The nature of fire is to destroy everything that comes into its fold. The power of evil is as great as the power of fire, and at the same time evil is as weak as fire, for fire does not endure, and so evil does not last. As fire destroys itself, so evil is its own destruction. Why is it said, 'Do not resist evil?' Because resistance gives life to evil, non-resistance lets it burn itself out.
In the form of anger, passion, greed, or stubbornness one sees evil, and also in the form of deceit and treachery. But the root of evil is one, and that is selfishness. In one person's heart the evil is perhaps manifest on the surface, in another person it is in the depth.
There is a saying in the East, 'Do not invoke the name of Satan or he will rise from his grave.' An inconsiderate or tactless person always falls into the error of awakening this evil even if it is asleep, for he does not know the music of life. In order to live in the world one should become a musician of life. Every person therein is a note, and the one who feels this way has an instrument before him: the whole world is an instrument upon which a symphony is to be played.
Even in small things one can observe the same law. Very often the great trouble that one has in life is not due to the difficulty of others, but to a lack of comprehension of human nature. If one knew human nature, not to resist evil would be the first lesson and the last lesson to be learned, for resistance becomes fuel to its fire. If one tells someone, 'Do not do this,' if one asks someone, 'Why did you do it?' if one says to someone, 'You have done such and such a thing,' by all these words one only makes evil stronger; one makes the person firmer in his fault.
Everyone in this world can be a teacher – but not a real teacher. A real teacher is the one who always teaches himself. This self has so many lacks that a whole lifetime is not enough to teach it. The more the self learns, the more it overlooks the evil in others. It does not mean that the evil is not in others; it only means that one finds in oneself the enemy which one was seeing outwardly. And the worst enemy one was faced with in outer life one finds to be in one's own heart. It makes one feel humiliated, but it teaches the true lesson: one finds oneself having the same element which one wishes to resist in another.
Life is a place where gentle movement is necessary. In thought, speech or action, in everything the rhythm must be controlled; the law of harmony should be observed in all that one does. One should know that, when walking barefoot on thorns, even they will not allow one to be free from the accusation: the thorns will accuse one of having trampled upon them. If the delicacy of living in this world is to that extent, can one say, 'I have gained sufficient wisdom,' or can anyone say, 'I can afford to live in this world without giving a thought to this problem?'
The problem of evil is great. Many cannot tolerate to hear the name of evil, but they are faced with it every moment of their lives and therefore to leave this problem unsolved does not help. Besides this, everyone is ready to judge, to observe, or to take notice of the evil in another, not knowing that sometimes the surface of a thing is quite different from its depth. Maybe what seems evil has something good inside it, or what is good in appearance may have a spark of evil inside. By what standard can we determine evil and good, and who can judge the evil and good of any man?
If one can judge something it is one's own evil and good. No one except God has the power to judge another. The sense of justice that is given to man is for judging his own actions, and if he judges himself he uses this sense best, because it is for this purpose that the sense of justice has been given to him.
When we look at life through a telescope, we shall find that it is nothing but a struggle for living, individually and collectively and it appears that, if there is anything worthwhile in this life, it is what is besides this struggle: giving and taking kindness and love, doing any action of unselfishness. However qualified a person in the things of the world, his qualification reaches a certain extent and does not go beyond. The whole qualification required is the understanding of life, understanding the law which is working behind it. It is this qualification alone which will diminish man's continual struggle in life. It will diminish his struggle in this way that it will give him less to resist. It will make him more tolerant of the natural condition of human beings. As soon as one realizes that one cannot expect from anyone something of which he is not capable, one becomes tolerant.
The difficulty is that everyone demands more of another person in the way of thought and consideration, of kindness and love, than he does of himself. Man wants more justice to give; and his standard may be so high that another person cannot keep up to it, which in turn makes him disappointed. What generally happens is that one does not just remain quiet after being disappointed but one resists, and so the struggle of life continues. One should not expect the pear tree to bear roses, nor the rose bush to produce jasmine. Every person is like a certain plant, but not the same plant. We may be fond of roses, but every plant does not bear roses. If we want roses, we should seek only the plant on which roses grow, and we must not be disappointed if what we find is not the rose-plant. In this way we can correct our own deception.
When people say that someone is bad it really means that the surface has become bad. The depth cannot be bad, however bad a person may seem. For goodness is life itself; and a person who would be all bad could not live. The very fact that he is living shows that there is a spark of goodness in him. Besides just as there are various objects so there are various persons; some show softness inside; some are very good to the depth and evil on the surface. Some are evil on the surface and good in the depth, for there are as many different varieties as there are souls.
What education, what point of view, what attitude in life is the best and will give the greatest happiness? It is the attitude of overlooking evil instead of resisting it. There are three ways of living one's life, which can be compared with the struggling in the sea whose waves are rising and falling all the time. The first will struggle as long as life will permit; but the rising and falling of the waves in the sea continue forever and ever, and in the end he will be drowned. And so it is with man. He struggles along, intoxicated by his struggle. How long will it go on? As long as his energy will permit it and in the end he will be drowned. In this struggle he may seem powerful, he may seem to have overcome others, he may seem to have done things greater than others – but what is it after all? In the end that person is drowned.
There is another man who knows how to move his arms harmoniously in the water, and who has got the rhythm of moving his arms and legs. He swims with the rising and falling of the waves, he is not struggling. This man has a hope of arriving at the port, if only the port is near. If his ideal is not too far off, then he is the one to accomplish it.
The third person is the one who walks above and over the water. It is this which is the meaning of Christ's walking upon the sea. Life is just like waves, it is making its way continually. The one who allows himself to be disturbed by it will be more and more disturbed every day. The one who does not take notice of it will keep the quietness which is his own within himself. The one who sees all things and yet rises above all things is the one who will walk upon the sea. No one can reach the highest summit of life, the summit of wisdom, in a moment's time; even a lifetime is too short. Yet hope is necessary. The one who hopes and sees the possibilities walks towards the summit. The one who has no hope has no legs to mount on this hill of wisdom, the summit of which is the desired goal.

Inayat Khan

Purity & impurity are one's own doing.

अत्तना हि [अत्तनाव (सी॰ स्या॰ पी॰)] कतं पापं, अत्तना संकिलिस्सति।

अत्तना अकतं पापं, अत्तनाव विसुज्झति।

सुद्धी असुद्धि पच्‍चत्तं, नाञ्‍ञो अञ्‍ञं [नाञ्‍ञमञ्‍ञो(सी॰)] विसोधये॥

Evil is done by oneself

by oneself is one defiled.

Evil is left undone by oneself

by oneself is one cleansed.

Purity & impurity are one's own doing.

No one purifies another.

No other purifies one.

Dhammpad 12.165

translated from the Pali by Thanissaro Bhikkhu. Access to Insight, 19 September 2010, http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/kn/dhp/dhp.12.than.html.

Buddha

Evil

An elephant was led to a well to drink. Seeing
itself in the water, it shied away. It thought it was
shying away from another elephant. It did not
realize it was shying away from its own self.

All evil qualities—oppression, hatred, envy,
greed, mercilessness, pride—when they are within
yourself, they bring no pain. When you see them
in another, then you shy away and feel the pain.
We feel no disgust at our own scab and abscess.
 But if we see a tiny abscess or half a
scratch on another’s hand, we shy away from that
person’s food and have no stomach for it whatsoever.
Evil qualities are just like scabs and abscesses;
when they are within us they cause no pain,
but when we see them even to a small degree in
another, then we feel pain and disgust.
Just as you shy away from your brother or sister,
so you should excuse them for shying away
from you. The pain you feel comes from those
faults, and they see the same faults. The seeker of
truth is a mirror for their neighbors. But those
who cannot feel the sting of truth are not mirrors
to anyone but themselves.

WHAT IS EVIL FOR?

None of us is called to destroy all the sufferings of
men, but only to serve men.


People always ask, " What is evil for ?"


What is evil ?


What we call evil is a challenge addressed to us, a


demand made upon our active love.

The man who will reply to these demands of the activity

of love will see precisely as much evil as he needs in order to

provoke his  activity.


Thus I think and feel now, but only lately I saw very


much evil, and I was vexed and in despair, and so I


prescribe the recipe which has helped me.


The moment you see an evil, even the smallest,
try to mend it, to diminish it,
and you will never see much evil at once
and will not arrive at despair,
and the hands will not drop,
and you will do much good.
 
LEO TOLSTOY

Living Gold

Let us consider a soul, not one that has appropriated the unreasoned desires and impulses of the bodily life, or any other such emotion and experience, but one that has cast all this aside, and as far as possible has no commerce with the bodily. Such a soul demonstrates that all evil is accretion, alien, and that in the purged soul the noble things are immanent, wisdom and all else that is good, as its native store.
If this is the soul once it has returned to its self, how deny that it is the nature we have identified with all the divine and eternal? Wisdom and authentic virtue are divine, and could not be found in the chattel mean and mortal: what possesses these must be divine by its very capacity of the divine, the token of kinship and of identical substance.
Hence, too, any one of us that exhibits these qualities will differ but little as far as soul is concerned from the Supernals; he will be less than they only to the extent in which the soul is, in him, associated with body.
This is so true that, if every human being were at that stage, or if a great number lived by a soul of that degree, no one would be so incredulous as to doubt that the soul in man is immortal. It is because we see everywhere the spoiled souls of the great mass that it becomes difficult to recognize their divinity and immortality.
To know the nature of a thing we must observe it in its unalloyed state, since any addition obscures the reality. Clear, then look: or, rather, let a man first purify himself and then observe: he will not doubt his immortality when he sees himself thus entered into the pure, the Intellectual. For, what he sees is an Intellectual-Principle looking on nothing of sense, nothing of this mortality, but by its own eternity having intellection of the eternal: he will see all things in this Intellectual substance, himself having become an Intellectual Kosmos and all lightsome, illuminated by the truth streaming from The Good, which radiates truth upon all that stands within that realm of the divine.
Thus he will often feel the beauty of that word “Farewell: I am to you an immortal God,” for he has ascended to the Supreme, and is all one strain to enter into likeness with it.
If the purification puts the human into knowledge of the highest, then, too, the science latent within becomes manifest, the only authentic knowing. For it is not by running hither and thither outside of itself that the soul understands morality and right conduct: it learns them of its own nature, in its contact with itself, in its intellectual grasp of itself, seeing deeply impressed upon it the images of its primal state; what was one mass of rust from long neglect it has restored to purity.
Imagine living gold: it files away all that is earthy about it, all that kept it in self-ignorance preventing it from knowing itself as gold; seen now unalloyed it is at once filled with admiration of its worth and knows that it has no need of any other glory than its own, triumphant if only it be allowed to remain purely to itself.

Plotinus

Problem of good and evil

When a pregnant woman is nearing her time, she is often taught how to relax into the pain of contractions. There is, in this process, an important and valuable lesson for all of us in dealing with painful situations in life. The lesson is simple in principle, but hard in practice. It is that relaxing into pain is far more effective than resisting pain.
Childbirth is a peculiarly appropriate situation for describing the benefits of living life by 'going with the flow', for it can be considered both literally and as a metaphor. A woman who is actually in labour and cannot but tense up at the pain of the contractions causes herself more pain over a longer period, for she retards the birth of her baby. Given this, one cannot help but wonder if it is not true quite generally that tensing against pain causes the pain itself to be worse. Certainly, many people have found that physical pain is worse if they are tense, and lessens if they can relax.
But the idea of childbirth can also form the basis of a metaphor for thinking about the 'pain' of tribulations in life. For tribulation always attends the coming-into-being of anything new, and it seems quite probable - does it not? - that 'tensing up' against the pains of tribulations is likely to 'delay the birth'. But what does 'tensing up against the pains of tribulations' mean?
It can mean both resisting change and electing to fight one's way through obstacles. In Taoism,  water is very frequently used as a metaphor. A river does not try to move the rocks out of its path, but flows round them in order to achieve its objective - the sea. But notice something: although initially the rock is not removed, over the course of time, it is worn away by the flow of water around it. The gentle action of water - the Taoist would say - eventually has the power to wear away even the hardest of rocks.
In this we see how it is that patience is a virtue. For gentle action patiently and continuously applied by the river leads eventually to the complete erosion of the rock. Patience, then, is a virtue not because of some moral nicety that says it is good to be patient, but because it is a quality which assists the attainment of objectives.
In Taoism, this thought is extended over all qualities, and, as a result, a whole worldview results. The Taoist worldview is one which accepts that progress along any way - whether that way be physical or spiritual - is bound to be met by obstacles. But, in Taoism, obstacles are accepted and the essence of its philosophy is that one should treat them as does the river its rocks - by flowing round them.
Here we have, then, a very powerful and subtle way through which we can approach the business of living.

Ray Walder