An Exercise in Insight

[Cheesus]

I really enjoy the growing insight that meditation offers, both in terms of knowing myself and knowing the world around me. I see that a real wisdom can grow out of practising mindfulness, and I see that wisdom reflected in many of the contributions on this forum.

With that in mind, I thought it might be interesting to use that increased reflexivity on a little intellectual exercise. Time and again I fall back to thinking about the following quote:

Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either -- but right through every human heart -- and through all human hearts.
- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

The above quote was born of experience in the Soviet Gulags - a reprehensible and vile place to be incarcerated. But to what extent does this hold true to each of you? And, if you find any truth in these words, what is its impact on human interaction?

With much time spent thinking about this quote, I have a number of my own ideas. However, because I have spent so much time thinking about it I would like to see what others have to say first.

Discuss!

[JonW]

It's a very powerful quote!
The more I meditate, the more I feel connected with everybody and everything in the world. As part of that process, I tend to be less and less judgmental of people.
I guess Solzhenitsyn was referring to the compassion he felt for his captors and that's an astonishingly forgiving line to take given his gruesome circumstances.
I find it impossible to say how I would feel if someone, say, did harm to somebody I love. Would I be able to find forgiveness in my heart? I really don't know.
On a far, far less extreme level, I'm finding it easier to accept and feel compassion for people who have "wronged" me. I've had a couple of instances recently where people who I thought I'd trusted have let me down. In the past I might have hung onto negative feelings about them. Of late I'm finding it easier to accept that they are but human, flawed as we all are. Maybe they didn't mean to hurt me. Maybe they were so consumed by their own pain that they were oblivious to my hurt. Maybe they were even doing their best in the circumstances.
If they had behaved in an "evil" fashion, however, I'm not sure if I'd be able to respond in the same way. How would I have responded, for example, had I been the father of Stephen Lawrence? Could I have found that grace and dignity in me? I really don't know.

[Cheesus]

That's a really interesting take on it! I hadn't even thought about it as a statement of compassion. The angle I keep approaching it from is of a more personal nature... of knowing the demon in me.

I suffer from OCDesque anxiety disorder. An element of this is something called 'pure-O', which is essentially worrying obsessively about indecent or harmful thoughts. This symptom no longer really occurs to me as it is essentially alleviated by allowing yourself to have these thoughts. Ironically, once you let them in they disappear (not in the least bit surprising to a mindfulness practitioner).

Accordingly, for me the quote allows me to forgive myself for impurity of thought; for essentially being human. However, I have actually taken it a little further and now live by the mantra that my thoughts do not define me, rather it is my actions that define me.

Thinking about this now, I suppose it is indeed that element of compassion that you speak of. However, it is not compassion for others, it is compassion for myself. I am coming more and more to the realisation that I've been trying to be the perfect person for so long. The futility of that has led to some raging inner tensions that have spilled out in all sorts of anxieties and pain.

I think you are absolutely right about it sign posting reason for forgiveness in others. It raises some interesting questions though, about whether or not certain 'evil' actions thus become excusable or even acceptable? I think this question strikes at the difficulty of balancing compassion and acceptance in Buddhism.

[JonW]

"I am coming more and more to the realisation that I've been trying to be the perfect person for so long."
I can relate to that. It's an impossible ask of oneself, of course, and one that is wholly exhausting. Not only is one striving to be perfect in one's own eyes, but perfect in the eyes of others too.
Just to be - it's so much easier, because it's a more natural way to live one's life.
I remember first reading Kabat-Zinn's line, "You are not your thoughts," and thinking, "Well, if they're not my thoughts, whose ****ing thoughts are they?"
Eight months later and not feeling attached to my thoughts comes as naturally as breathing. Though there are still times when I get snagged up in them. But not for long. These days I have so much more energy - energy that, in the past, would have been spent tying myself up in mental knots.
Life is no longer a fight. Mostly it just flows, mindfully.

[Cheesus]

It was really quite liberating to come to the realisation that I have been a perfectionist. It's amazing how much unconscious reasoning can govern your actions for years with you being completely oblivious.

Back to the initial quotation: if it is true that evil is a part of human nature, do you think it can be excused? Should we an element of our nature the right to exist?

[Gareth]

The more I meditate, the more I feel connected with everybody and everything in the world. As part of that process, I tend to be less and less judgmental of people.

Exactly this.

[JonW]

Personally, I would avoid the word "evil". To me, it implies that people who commit deplorable acts are somewhat less than human. Those deplorable acts may be impossible for us to understand but that doesn't mean we excuse them. The uncomfortable fact is that such acts doesn't make their perpetrators any less human.
We all keep our own accounts.
And, in the words of Morrissey, it takes guts to be gentle and kind.

[rara]

Define good...define evil.

One man's good is another man's evil.

This is why we fight wars over "what's right".

How responsible are we of the thoughts that enter our heads? Yes you are right, "good" and "evil" will pass through every one of us regularly. Or maybe they don't at all....

Only we know ourselves for sure.

Have fun with this

[rara]

I remember first reading Kabat-Zinn's line, "You are not your thoughts," and thinking, "Well, if they're not my thoughts, whose ****ing thoughts are they?"
Eight months later and not feeling attached to my thoughts comes as naturally as breathing. Though there are still times when I get snagged up in them. But not for long. These days I have so much more energy - energy that, in the past, would have been spent tying myself up in mental knots.
Life is no longer a fight. Mostly it just flows, mindfully.

Awesome! Key is not getting tied up in thoughts with negative impact. But some may be of some use. This is where ideas come from after all.

[BioSattva]

OK, here goes my attempt - I have already posted elements of it elsewhere on this forum, so apologies if I sound like a broken record ....

Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either -- but right through every human heart -- and through all human hearts.
- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

What got your DNA through the tough survival tests from Australopithecus to Homo Sapiens? Hell, what got it through from a tree shrew to primate? I'll tell you - EVIL. Murder, rape, slaughter - nature 'red in tooth and claw'. You owe evil for your presence today - BIGTIME. Evil has been your friend, and could be your friend again if your DNA finds itself lost in the wilderness without a hint of civilisation. Evil is humanity's backup system if shit hits the fan - without it human DNA is too vulnerable.

The good news is that we are no longer red in tooth and claw - we know that if we form a line side by side with other humans and sweep through an area of countryside we are more likely to find a source of food, that will benefit each individual more than if we go alone, if shared. Sharing - charity - becomes an integral core of this human 'society' - if I am lucky and find the food today and share it out, then tomorrow if (and likely, when) I am unlucky, my other lucky fellow society member(s) will share his luck with me. In this way human society acts like a net catching various resources, with no one part of the net being any more valuable or deserving than another. The health of every individual is valued so that more resources can be identified and 'netted' by healthy eyes and healthy limbs. Humans have continued to embellish this system to the extent that they are no longer vulnerable to the old conditions their DNA evolved within, and so the 'evil tendencies' of humans remain as a kind of useless and redundant DNA. However, what has come as a result of the relatively recent complexity of human societies are 'complexes' - we easily get tangled up in the complexity and get lost in it.

Anything which breaks down the underlying social survival strategy is deemed 'evil' - the murder, the rape, the slaughter. Humans all seem to instinctively understand how the charity and reciprocal care system works, and yet breakdowns in the complexities of modern societies often sever the global social net in various places, causing the humanity net to freak out temporarily, revert to EVIL just in case - reacting to what seems to be the approach of an uncivilised condition, and then self-repair. But without a global blueprint to purge any new unhealthy appetites or habits triggered by the evil, the repairing net just makes do, and fills in the gaps in ways which conflict with neighbouring nets - sealing evil into the net itself. It then takes time for the society to purge itself - change laws and values, so that civility and social cohesion can once again rise. Mindfulness appears to be the ideal tool for amplifying this purging process.

Mindfulness works with our feral instinct 'backup system' by simply acknowledging and accepting it - as a friend - this system has got our back and needs to be respected for that, and this befriending and accepting becomes exactly the process which diffuses the feral, evil, potential within us. This is because evil needs the sympathetic nervous system to be triggered in order to manifest, and mindfulness is too busy enjoying peaceful calm - negating clinging desperately to good things, and hitting the ejector seat button when bad things come along - to allow the sympathetic nervous system to rule the day.

Sorry about the blabbery-ness of that, but I hope it made some sense. I got a lot of it from Thich Nhat Hanh, actually, and JKZ talks a bit about our ancestrally-programmed stress response. A long time ago, when our DNA met a tiger, placing our hands together and bowing wasn't going to do a lot for us That's when we needed evil. One wouldn't kill a tiger today, because one doesn't have to, but without evil instincts we wouldn't be here today. Mindfulness helps us to undermine our evil dimension, though - by recognising that evil is actually a part of 'good' - life sustaining itself.