Author Topic: Evil silence?  (Read 11913 times)

Ensapa

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Re: Evil silence?
« Reply #15 on: January 05, 2013, 06:21:10 AM »
Actually, to me, to classify something as evil in the context of Buddhism... I find it very strange. There is nothing in this world, even samsara that can be considered evil.

Evil is something that is based on a person's perspective. So for example I was brought up in a regular society that tells me stealing is bad, while my friend was brought up in a society that tells him stealing is good... then our perspective of what's evil will be different.

What I believe is not about 'evil' but I believe in Karma, for that is the universal truth that is equal to all regardless of what his or her believes that is controlled and contaminated by delusions anyway.

So the question here if we remain silent when it comes to something that can potentially hurt someone is not the best character a person should have... But is it considered evil? No, I dont think so... If it is not evil, what is it then? It means we are excessively, overly SELFISH that we do not care what happens around us or even to people closely associated with us causing us to remain silent just to preserve our own self (which wouldn't last long anyway).

I do not believe keeping silent is 'EVIL', but I believe if the action or result that come from us keeping silent is harmful, then we too are the cause of it, we allowed it to happen because we did not say anything against it. And yes... karma will catch up that when we are in that situation, we will face the similar or worst situation.

Therefore, if we are Buddhist, then we will practice first to open our heart and make everything that harms others OUR BUSINESS... then we can speak up with wisdom that will not damage anyone. After all, sometimes even with our best intentions to speak up to prevent something bad from happening, due to lack of wisdom, we end up making things worst.

I would say that being silent when times demand that we need to speak up would be an act that will bring along a lot of negative karma because we are knowingly allowing the situation to get worse and we are not doing anything about it. For example if you see someone who is wrongly accused being executed and you know he is innocent but you choose not to speak out for him, it would be the same as you committing a murder because the negative karma of allowing something bad to happen is the same as actually doing the negative action.

apprenticehealer

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Re: Evil silence?
« Reply #16 on: January 05, 2013, 08:13:51 AM »
I agree with Q that 'Evil is something that is based on a person's perspective'.
However I believe that we are all born with a conscience that guides us to realise what is right or wrong, what is good or bad. A person may be termed as being born evil but it could be that he had a very abusive and traumatic childhood, or he had perhaps some injury on certain part of his frontal lobe that may have caused this person to be 'evil'/ lack of conscience.
Therefore could this be that this person has bought with him the negative karma from a previous life that had now ripened in this lifetime that had caused him to commit these acts of evil ?
Knowing that an act of evil is being committed and keeping quiet because we don't wish to get involved or closing a blind eye to it , consoling ourselves that this person will eventually be 'caught' is in itself initiating negative karma for ourselves. I'm sure that the very fact we know that an evil deed is being committed and feel horrible about it , shows that our conscience is kicking in ! Not doing anything about it also creates guilt in ourselves!
Buddhism teaches us to be kind and Compassionate to EVERYONE . Kindness and Compassion is the total opposite of causing harm to ANYONE !

DSFriend

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Re: Evil silence?
« Reply #17 on: January 05, 2013, 10:59:51 AM »
"The first step in the acquisition of wisdom is silence, the second listening, the third memory, the fourth practice, the fifth teaching others." ~Solomon Ibn Gabriol (the great Hebrew poet and philosopher)

I find the above words of wisdom by Solomon to be very practical. Most people (yes including myself) speaks and judge others too quickly. In life, not everything is as easily recognizable as black and white, right and wrong, evil and good. I am ready to be criticized by having lack of principles, weak in dharma or moral ethics. I do agree also with the other participants in this forum that people do not speak against evil because of not wanting to be nosy. I do think it stems from not wanting to take responsibility to do something about it.

Can one person speaking out move mountains? Yes I do think so as looking at history, there has been influential (both good and evil) men who have used their speech to create peace and war.

There is great victory in breaking the silent to what is outright evil and wrong. If it's not because of the persistent courage of many who broke the silent and strong hold of racism, today, we will not have Obama to lead the great America. This is one of many great outcomes of breaking the evil silent.

There is great danger in breaking the silent out of peer pressure and lack of wisdom..."ya, let's all jump on the wagon else I will be ostracized" mentality and fear. It starts from becoming bullies in schools, to using speech for war. ..to the point that people are influenced to commit the act, remain silent and not capable of repenting.

I pray the the Wisdom Buddha Dorje Shugden grants us unobscured wisdom that our body, speech and mind are used to benefit ourselves and others.

Source : http://iss.sagepub.com/content/7/2/187.short
PRESSURE AND GUILT: WAR EXPERIENCES OF A YOUNG GERMAN SOLDIER AND THEIR BIOGRAPHICAL IMPLICATIONS (PART 1)

The psychoanalysts Alexander and Margarete Mitscherlich claimed in their widely discussed article (1977) that Germans would be incapable of mourning about and repenting of the disaster of the Second World War, the millions of deaths and suffering of the victims of Nazi terror. They argued that Germans would repress or deny what had happened to avoid suffering from severe depression. The Mitscherlich thesis is criticised in this study by displaying the wide landscape of deep personal involvement (called a `trajectory') in various autobiographical differentations of living within a world of total collective moral deterioration.

The research necessary to prove or disprove such a thesis works with `autobiographical narrative interviews' conceived by the author. The research style of meticulous structural descriptions is developed to utilise formal text indicators for localising such phenomena like fading out, delayed recollection, and compartmentalised phases of working-through. Typical for this method, its data arise from interviewing single cases, here that of an ideologically non-committed German. As a young German soldier in the Second World War, he too showed phases of incapacity to mourn and repent. But the informant did not remain in that state. Severe crisis experiences in his later private life led to sudden recollections of encounters with victims of Nazi terror. He started to mourn and repent. Besides empirical evidence of the feeling of personal entanglement in collective guilt also among those not engaged in intentional acts of immoral behaviour, we encounter the interesting phenomenon of delayed mourning about and repenting of the moral deterioration within the collectivity of `We, the Germans'. This finding is corroborated by data from many narrative interviews with other Germans who were non-committed to Nazi ideology but active in the German war machinery.

Positive Change

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Re: Evil silence?
« Reply #18 on: January 05, 2013, 04:48:40 PM »
This quote I remember from my childhood which really just sums it all up:

"All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing"

With that said, our silence can then be perceived as aiding evil... purely because if we know it is something bad/evil and we remain silent and do not do or say anything, we are supporting the act. We  may argue the fact that it is not the intention but the non action speaks more volumes!

Hence, whenever we are in such a 'dilemma', just voice our opinion and speak our mind no matter how silly we think we sound. Because in speaking up, we actually care enough and we knock our ego down. Is this not spiritual practice? Imagine, this slightest non action can actually create such immense negative karma and we do it all the time in varying degrees!

bambi

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Re: Evil silence?
« Reply #19 on: January 06, 2013, 02:54:36 AM »
I believe that not speaking up means that I am selfish and I don't care. And it also means that it is ok for the other person to be acting that way which is wrong. What if the evil things that the person is doing brings negative karma? Do we still keep quiet? Whether the person listens to us or not, right or wrong, doesn't matter, so long as we voice it out of concern and care. We shouldn't let our pride and ego win!

diablo1974

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Re: Evil silence?
« Reply #20 on: January 07, 2013, 04:05:13 AM »
It depends, but for sure keeping silence if you know something bad is going to happen and will hurt or inflict injuries to others (physical or mental) is definitely non virtuous. Sometimes, when we speaks out of concern and care, people would get hurt indirectly too. Nevertheless, motivation in how and why we speaks is importance, it actually determines the results of the action of speech.