The master Bankei's talks were attended not only by Zen students but by persons of all ranks and sects. He never quoted sutras not indulged in scholastic dissertations. Instead, his words were spoken directly from his heart to the hearts of...
continue...
Posted on Mar.27.2008 @ 03:27AM EDTby9999999
In this philosophy class a prompt is given each week for students to respond to and submit online.
This week's prompt was to explain Plato's argument regarding why it is worse to do injustice than to suffer it, and why it is worse to do injustice to another and not get punished than to do it and get punished.
response to prompt:
“Socrates” argues that a man who is
unjust and doesn’t get punished is more unhappy than one who is unjust and does
get punished because the man who gets punished suffers justly, and is thereby
liberated from the evil on his soul in a way that one who isn’t punished
cannot.Therefore its worse to escape
punishment than to be punished.
I am not convinced.I suppose it would make sense if I believed
what Socrates believed aboutthings like
justice, happiness, unhappiness, worse, better, evil, liberation, and so on
down the line.In fact, all Socrates did
was re-define what Polus thinks about the above terms and walk him through his
reasoning.For example, he says that is
it more shameful to do than to suffer wrong.Then he says that because it is more shameful it is worse.Polus went with it--reprogrammed.However, nothing here(this body) holds on to
beliefs and concepts (there is nothing here to hold on to or push away any
thing). Polus believed X, Socrates believed Y.Now Polus believes Y as well.Okay?Try telling this to Dick
Cheney.Would a soldier who has brain
damage and no legs be “happier” than Cheney?These kinds of things are subjective ideas at best.The kind of reasoning offered by Socrates
here sounds awfully familiar to the oppressive dogma of religion and the
like.“Suffer now!You’ll get your reward in heaven!” haha.It is very convenient for those in power for
people to have these sorts of beliefs.
Without having concepts of right or
wrong, happiness or unhappiness, how can I be anything other than what-I-am
as-I-have-always-been-and-always-will-be?There is nothing needed here that isn’t here already.
You do an unjust act to another person. The assumption must be that you consider the act unjust for what ever personal reason (right or wrong, good or bad). You must suffer the guilty of the act forever (Karma??). The person who receives the injustice must suffer the act only once. Therefore more suffering is associated with producing the act of injustice than receiving it. MU
perhaps socrates was trying to show his student the fallacy of the entire argument. we really will never know the whole of the argument, just what someone else wrote about it. so all we can know is what Plato wrote of his teacher and the like. but to those who believe in all that reward stuff:
suffering is our reward. it is through suffering that we learn to live in compassion and with compassion the concept of justice is negated. these things are superficial still, but one should not hold others up to a standard of correct or incorrect thinking and viewpoints. Right view is not "A" or "B" but yet it is "A" or "B". socrates understood things beyond what most would give him credit for but his understanding is limited in the same way that yours or mine is. there is only a point to which our minds are capable of handling what we can perceive directly. he knew this and maybe realized what he could and could not communicate. besides, even the buddha taught different forms to different people depending on their individual mind. :)
Karma is more about the kind of person you are, and what you can expect to happen because of that, than it is about a punishment or reward for each individual act.
In the question that is put, if an injustice is done to you it will heal.
But an injustice that you do will not heal. It will fester, like an infection. This is so even if doing the injustice makes you happy.
Dick Cheney has his own Karma. I am sure that he works 12 to 18 hours a day, seven days a week, but his life does not improve. He is rich, and no matter how much richer he gets his life does not get better.
So he, just as many like him, has become a slave to a piece of paper. Each day the number on the page of the money he has gets bigger, but his life does not improve. It has reached its saturation point. But still he must work, and work, and work.
The greed is what will kill him in his time of dieing. Do you think he is turly happy in his life. It's the greed, egotriping, prowertriping, don't care about you and the 8 Bil. people in the world. Let them be out of work like me for 5 years. Go day to with out food. They can take all there money and feed the poor. Just give back. What have they done thats good. Dame takers.
You do an unjust act to another person. The assumption must be that you consider the act unjust for what ever personal reason (right or wrong, good or bad). You must suffer the guilty of the act forever (Karma??). The person who receives the injustice must suffer the act only once. Therefore more suffering is associated with producing the act of injustice than receiving it. MU
If a man who is unjust is aware of him being unjust, he will suffer anyway. Punishment is a very complicated concept and what Socrates meant with it I don't know.
If a man who has been treated unjustly can forgive, he will suffer less.
MONASTERE DE KARSKA