David wrote:
Thich said:
So if we know how to look at the so-called criminals, we will have compassion. Society has created them like that; they have not been lucky, they have been born into a situation where social conditions, and their parents and other influences, have created that kind of behavior, and that person is very much the victim of the situation.David and Ether, if you are looking for an indept discussion on Thich Nhat Hanh you are probably talking to the wrong guy. To be honest I don't read much of his stuff but I do like his energy and I like the energy of the zen nun who has been coming here annually. I seem to have a connection with them, perhaps from past lives - that's my feel on it.
On the other hand, I personally would not see a lot wrong with the statement you quoted. I would see it, not as a statement to let criminals "off the hook" but as a aid to developing more useful mental formations to bring one in the direction of compassion for the very people we might be inclined to condemn.
One of my own favourite sayings is: "The greatest gift we can give to anyone is to accept them fully for what they are, no matter what they have done".
If this is "social-constructionist mind-set, the underpinning of 'leftism'" then so be it. But perhaps you mean something else.
As for Karma and science, I will have to get back to you on that.
Naive - well he has lived as a monk for most of his 80 years, they don't listen to the news, he is from a very different culture and would not be "worldy or street wise", as a kid in the Bronx would be. But does this mean he does not know truth?.
This is all grist to the "enraged buddhist" side of the "engaged buddhist" mill.I like that, although I'm not quite sure whether you are referring to me or to you as the buddhist, enraged or otherwise[
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(I like Ram Dass also, but the first thing people say about him is -"oh he was into drugs was'nt he" - thus duly writing him off )
One of Thich Nhat Hanh's poems below, I think describes compassion fairly well.
Please call me by my true namesby
Thich Nhat HanhDon't say that I will depart tomorrow-
even today I am still arriving.
Look deeply: every second I am arriving
to be a bud on a Spring branch,
to be a tiny bird, with still-fragile wings,
learning to sing in my new nest,
to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower,
to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.
I still arrive,
in order to laugh and to cry,
to fear and to hope.
The rhythm of my heart
is the birth and death of all that is alive.
I am a mayfly metamorphosing
on the surface of the river.
And I am the bird
that swoops down to swallow the mayfly.
I am a frog swimming happily
in the clear water of a pond.
And I am the grass-snake
that silently feeds itself on the frog.
I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones,
my legs as thin as bamboo sticks.
And I am the arms merchant,
selling deadly weapons to Uganda.
I am the twelve-year-old girl,
refugee on a small boat,
who throws herself into the ocean
after being raped by a sea pirate.
And I am the pirate,
my heart not yet capable of seeing and loving.
I am a member of the politburo,
with plenty of power in my hands.
And I am the man who has to pay
his "debt of blood" to my people
dying slowly in a forced-labor camp.
My joy is like Spring, so warm
it makes flowers bloom all over the Earth.
My pain is like a river of tears,
so vast it fills the four oceans.
Please call me by my true names,
so I can hear all my cries and laughter at once,
so I can see that my joy and pain are one.
Please call me by my true names,
so I can wake up
and the door of my heart
can be left open,
the door of compassion.