madhusudan wrote: ↑Sun Apr 29, 2018 9:59 pm
PeterC wrote: ↑Sun Apr 29, 2018 12:13 pm
There are many places where if you help someone who has suffered an accident, you run a material risk of being held financially responsible for the accident itself. I don’t know if that’s the case in Nepal but it’s certainly the case, or perceived to be the case in several other countries. So the response may not just be the bystander effect.
From my experience in Nepal I remember there being no right to medical care. It was pay upfront or no care.
When a friend's mother took ill he gathered friends and family and we all pooled money together and went to the hospital with him to donate blood. Without money and blood, you get nothing.
... Isn't Nepal a predominantly Hindu country, not Buddhist?
Josef wrote: ↑Sun Apr 29, 2018 3:51 pm
There is no perfection of evangelism in the bodhisattva path.
Take a good look at paths with conversion tactics and you will find gross suffering throughout history and in the present.
This is also relevant to the OP. If people are actually going to practice dharma, being converted through any efforts other than their own will and intent will not lead to authenticity. It will lead to suffering and delusion.
The Sutras often reference bodhisattvas developing skill in teaching and converting others. This obviously doesn't mean forcing Buddhadharma on anyone or "cramming it down their throats," and that's not what I'm referring to either. (Although, instances where a ruler is converted mean that Buddhism becomes the legally backed "national religion" in that land.) There is nothing destructive about introducing others to Buddhadharma or even using a bit of persuasion so that individuals can relate with the teaching who otherwise would not have.
Inviting people to learn about and engage in Buddhist practice through a Buddhist charity would not be destructive either, in my view. It's merely offering an enduring gift alongside an ephemeral one.
PeterC wrote: ↑Sun Apr 29, 2018 12:13 pm
But as several people have pointed out: what is the point of bemoaning other peoples’ faults. The only behavior you can reliably change is your own. If you see someone acting in an immoral or unpleasant way, your reaction should be: how terrible, they must be suffering from very serious delusions to be acting like this. Or perhaps: how terrible, they are accumulating karma that will cause future suffering from them. The right response to bad behavior is compassion for the actor, not anger.
I would think that it's a bit more nuanced than that. That being said, I hope the people who take this "I can only change me" attitude to what I would say is an extreme also appreciate all of the opportunities I have afforded them on this forum to develop patience, compassion, and understanding. Sometimes you take lessons and sometimes you give them. I'm giving back.
Queequeg wrote: ↑Sun Apr 29, 2018 2:37 am
"The life preserver is thrown. If the drowning person doesn't see it, I guess, oh well. It doesn't mean we should yell and scream, throw it again and again, paint it day-glo, attach LEDs, anything, to try to get their attention. That would be disturbing to this pleasant state of mind I cultivated, and that's just ego talking anyway. And 'sides, that's their karma. Nothing I can do."
You might have gotten the impression from reading the Sutras that these bodhisattvas who go around literally giving away their arms and legs to all and sundry in the name of bodhicitta are all some kind of ambitious "captains of industry" in the Buddha's empire, racking up merit and figuratively carrying the world on their backs...
But true inner peace, Q... True inner peace is the way of the apathetic employee. Don't even ask me about Dharma. I just work for Lord Buddha.
A far cry from those disciples Lord Buddha warned would be risking their very lives to go into a new area to spread His teaching.
☸