Investigation Into The Ethics of Military Service

Investigation Into The Ethics Of Military Service by Ajahn Brahm As Don, our president, remarked the very beginning. I've only just flown in yesterday afternoon from London, having gone there to give a conference on human resources, but also to do some other interesting activities. Sometimes I said this to one of the drivers when I was in the UK, and I liked to sort of do new things as a monk, to boldly go where no other monk has been before. If you know your Star Trek, that's what I, Captain Kirk used to say when I used to watch that 30 years ago, I did to see other little things which go on in the Buddhist world, because when there is new experiences, there's always new insights and different ways of looking at things. And certainly if you come to a place like this, the last thing you really want is to listen to what you already know, to hear what you've heard before, because the whole point of growth is to be able to see things from a different perspective, to expand one's understanding of the world. And there, through, once expanded understanding, better to see a little deeper, to overcome some of the questions and the problems which arise in our daily lives. Now, one of the invitations, which I was very keen to accept while I was in UK because it was unique, I never done this before, was actually to go to the Ministry of Defence in the UK to talk to soldiers and her Air Force personnel and Navy personnel who were Buddhists. Because sometimes you wonder. And I've wondered for a long time, can you be a Buddhist and a soldier at the same time? In a modern army which is involved in many dubious conflicts around the world? And how can you be a Buddhist? Because certainly when I was growing up, I thought that was the last thing which a Buddhist should do to join an army. But I always want to question these things and never take my assumptions for granted. So there was a chaplaincy conference for Ministry of Defence personnel. I remember the last time, which I was in UK, being driven past one of the huge establishments which were protected by many layers of razor wire because of security concerns and wondering whether that was a misnomer, they shouldn't really call the Minister of Ministry of Defence. It's more like the Ministry of Attack. But I wanted to go and see what was happening. And so, because there were people who signed up as being Buddhists in the British Army, and because that there was a duty of care to such personnel. The government had to organize spiritual care for those who signed up as Buddhist. So they have. They have established a Buddhist chaplain. And the Buddhist chaplain wanted to have a Buddhist chaplaincy program on one weekend. I happened to be in town at the time, so I was invited to one of the military establishments outside of Andover to talk to the Buddhists. When I went there and I told other people I was going there. Of course, the question that question was asked is that what in Buddhism we call right livelihood to be a soldier? Because those of you who know your Buddhism know that the ethics of morality in Buddhism is so passive and non harming, and part of the Eightfold path is called right livelihood. In other words, if you have a livelihood which causes farmer hurt to other beings or to yourself, that's not considered beyond the path of Buddhism. So I always assumed that being a soldier was wrong. Livelihood. You are a bad Buddhist if you can be a Buddhist at all, being a soldier. But then again. The armies are sometimes useful in this world, if not essential, and the world of armies have been changing. This should have been changing, and much of the world is sometimes in peacekeeping. But more than that, when I went up to see the people who were soldiers, I was very impressed with their sincerity and their integrity. They were committed to being Buddhists. They respected his philosophy in the way of looking at the world, and they really wanted to be Buddhists. And so there was as much of a, uh, a problem, uh, in their own, uh, trying to, uh, bring together their Buddhist practice and their Buddhist ideas with their career as a soldier. It was as much a problem for them as there was for me, just trying to figure out where they were at and what they were doing. But it says sincerity, which really impressed me and made me think again. Is it wrong livelihood to be a soldier? Can you be a soldier and a good Buddhist at the same time? And it reminded me of another sort of assumption which, you know, some Buddhist had a long time ago. Is it all right to be, say, a homosexual, to be a Buddhist? And of course, not having been grown up with homosexuals or lesbians or transgender people, being a straight guy in London during the 60s, sometimes I didn't know until coming to Perth, you got to know, befriend and respect members of the gay and lesbian community. There's nothing wrong with being gay, lesbian, homosexual, whatever and being a good Buddhist. It's how you practice your sexual life, makes you a good Buddhist. Are not such a good Buddhist. Perhaps it was the same with being a soldier. So I had to look more deeply into what it means by the ethics of Buddhism and go deeper into the idea of the law of karma. To understand if you are a soldier, are you making bad karma or good karma? And it's a whole investigation which is going to be the subject of this talk this evening. Even though you aren't soldiers yourself, and maybe you are, as a few soldiers or military people in this talk this evening, there may be some listening on the internet. It's a fascinating question to get some bearing on, because even if one is not in the military, that one does depend upon the military for one's security. We do have an Australian Army and Air Force and Navy, and they do offer some protection for our lifestyle. And maybe you may have a friend or a son or a father who's in the military who just celebrated Anzac Day while I was overseas. Never noticed that somehow in the military there is a sense of ethics, a sense of dignity, a sense of selflessness, which has always inspired me as a Buddhist monk. And something is something respectable in the military. But then again, there's the killing and the bombing and the bullets, which sometimes. Is hard to accept as a Buddhist monk. But then again, also. It's not just Australia which has an army. Every country has an army, even so-called Buddhist countries. I'm certainly I was in Sri Lanka in February. And Sri Lanka is a predominantly Buddhist country and they have a strong army. And I'd imagine that most of the soldiers in that army are Buddhist and go to the temple, but they are fighting a war with the Tamil Tigers and it's a very vicious war. I would actually say that it's not a Buddhist versus a Hindu war, because there are people of all religions on both sides. And I know I was told I didn't know this before, that the leader of the Tigers, Prabhakaran, is actually a Catholic, not a Tamil. It's not nothing to do with religion, that war. But if you are a Buddhist, can you fight in that war? I was also, uh, having a conversation with someone a couple of weeks ago before I left to go to United Kingdom, that we often say that in Buddhism, there's never a war fought in the name of Buddhism, and Buddhist don't go to the war. But then in the Second World War, the Japanese called themselves Buddhists and fought. So where does this all lead us? We have questions to ask here, and the question has to come more deep than we've ever gone before. The Buddha actually did say that the karma. Has is all about one's intentions. And those intentions have to be looked upon from two angles. Sometimes I even word intention and karma is not understood in its proper depth. When I studied the rules for monks, which is a very, very strict discipline, a very strict rules which we have to keep. It it dawned upon me from how these rules worked. That there is two halves to intention, which one has to consider if one is going to find out whether something is ethical, ethical, allowable, appropriate or not. And those two halves are one's motive and one's goal. And later on, having discovered this, you know, in 2500 years Buddhist the rule book to find out this is very, very close to modern Western law. The motive is where one is coming from, and the goal is where one intends to reach. For example, no 1st May uh uh, be coming from compassion, or I may be coming from fear, while may be coming from ill will. Where may be coming from, uh, to stupidity. These are called ones motives. Where is one coming from? And the Buddha was very clear to say that it is the the color of the come with is good or bad karma, wholesome or unwholesome, skillful or unskillful. All depends upon the motivation where one is coming from. In other words, if one is really acting, from compassion, from kindness, from selflessness, and from, uh, generosity, because one is coming from the right place of pure place. However that pans out in one's actions of body or speech, or even if one's restrained from action, non-action, that is always going to be good, positive karma because it comes from the right place. However, if one is coming from selfishness, no ill will or whatever, it's always going to be bad karma because it's coming from the bad place. So in other words, if you want to sort of make a donation, but just out of pride, just to show off because you think that you know you are better than the person sitting next to you, then there's an element of bad karma. Next is coming from the bad place. And the question now is, can you say to an act of killing coming from compassion? Is there a possibility that you can? Because no. Good karma is always what comes from a good place, a good motivation? Can there be a positive, wholesome motivation sometimes to say for killing? Can one kill out of compassion, selflessness, self-defense, putting a person out of their misery or whatever? And the case which I quoted, which I think you may have heard here before, which changed many of the ways that I looked at the law of karma. Was a case which occurred when I was visiting my family in England many years before, when I was staying with my mother. And there's only so much meditation you can talk about with your mother. Actually, don't even try it, because you'll never be able to teach your mother anything. Because she looked after you when you were so small, and that conditioning is so strong that anyone else can teach your mother, but not you. No matter how wise you are, how brilliant you are, or how enlightened you are, your mother is your mother. You are her son. She is a teacher. You're the disciple and that's it. So I remember once sitting with my mother, she was watching the news on television. So I sat down and watched it with her. And that's when I saw an a report on a fascinating situation, which was happening in that at that time in a hospital in the south of Wales. Because there was a mother who was pregnant with twins. And the situation was that if that doctor did not intervene with certainty, the mother and both children would die. There would be three deaths. But if that doctor performed an abortion on one of those fetuses, then the other one would survive and so would the mother with 100% certainty. Another fascinating situation. Should the doctor perform an abortion on one of the fetuses in the mother's womb? Or should he just stand aside? And because the situation was so certain that if he did nothing, three would die. If he did something, one would die. To me, it was one of those very, very rare occasions when it seemed ethical for that doctor to perform the abortion. And when I've gone around different countries and I've asked people, Buddhists, sincere Buddhists, what they would do if they were the doctor, I think nearly everybody I've asked. 98% of Buddhists may be, or 99 would always say if that was them, that they would perform the abortion. Sometimes people object. They say they should do nothing. But certainly in Buddhism, in ethics, in common sense. If you have a duty, they're doing nothing is an act of negligence. It is just as culpable if you actually performed an act of to kill the whole three. To sit back and do nothing is no excuse. If you have an opportunity and a duty of care, doing nothing is the same as doing an act. It is still bad karma to do nothing when you could have done something, as obviously in modern law, if you just pass by somebody who is dying or need some assistance by the side of the road, you just can't stop and do nothing. You have your duties there. For example, when people ask me, no, how about your rules for being a monk? You know that sometimes we're not allowed to touch ladies as a monk, and nuns are not allowed to touch them in. But I remember here in Perth many years ago, I carried a beautiful girl in my arms. Maybe she must have been about maybe 19 or 20. And I carried her in my arms and she was dressed with makeup and perfume out for the night. And the situation was, I was travelling back from a talk one evening, and a car in front of us was involved in a collision. So obviously we stopped and I helped the injured out of the car, so she was covered with blood. And of course, whether she was a girl or a boy, young or old, whatever, I had a duty to help. And that duty was more important as part, if you like, of the rules of discipline, which I have, and I'm sure that anyone would have seen me, would have actually criticized me more if I just stood aside and just let an injured person suffer more than she needed. There is something about the underlying rules of compassion and awareness, which one should always bear in mind when making these ethical decisions to. Doing nothing is no excuse if it's going to cause more harm. So in that case of a doctor who is faced with a decision which in my terms was to kill one or to kill three, what was the most compassionate thing to do? In that case? Now, if that was me and I wasn't a monk, I would say that I would perform that abortion to to save three lives. And it was rare because to save two lives rather than to allow three to die, it was a rare occasion because most of life we don't face those dilemmas. Most of life is quite clear, but there are always these exceptions to the rules, and it's those exceptions to the rules is where the underlying principles of Buddhism have to come up as underlying principles are the karma, the sort of the the color of that karma, whether it's going to be positive or negative, good or bad, it's all well, what is coming from? What is one's motives? If it really is out of compassion and kindness, then it's going to be the right place to go. The right thing to do because you're coming from the right place. Another example of that, which I've quoted here again, which I want to bring up because it puts these things in perspective. Sometimes I could think that's a carte blanche for just breaking all your precepts, for carrying ladies if you're a monk or for doing these other things in ordinary circumstance. I'm talking about exceptional circumstances here. When I go as a monk, I'm allowed to carry a beautiful lady or whereas a doctor, it seems appropriate to perform an abortion. This other case was concerns the Buddhist precept of life. And it changed my opinion of lying. Once when a disciple from here there was an English man who just happened to be in the Royal Navy, but he retired to Perth. He had a heart attack many years ago. He's a very devoted Buddhist. One of the earliest members of our Buddhist society. After his heart attack, they managed to get him to Royal Perth in time to save his life. But he was on the edge. His arteries were clogged and so he was put on the emergency list for a bypass operation, which was the usual procedure in those days before stents and balloons and stuff. So he was in one of the wards in Royal Perth Hospital, a ward with three other men waiting for his time to have the bypass, but also waiting until his condition was strong enough to take that operation because he just had a heart attack. So he was waiting for them in many days, and I used to go and visit him. And you know what it's like being in a ward with other other men or other women. You're there all day, 24 hours, and you must get to speak to these people and you get friends with them. When I was in hospital once in Rockingham, just for 6 or 7 days, again in a war with three other people who really got friendly with these people. But unfortunately, when you're friendly with these people, you have some very stupid conversations. Remember a conversation we had in this ward, and we got round to the worst possible medical procedure. Many of these people have been in hospital before, and when some said it was one of these injections. You have to find out how your kidneys are going to put a huge amount of radioactive material in your veins. In other words, said, oh, that's nothing. The barium milks, it tastes awful. That's the worst. I remember someone said, no, no, I've had all of those. But very, very worst is the barium enema, I said. And that's when one of the men in the corner went white. He said, oh, I'm going to have that this afternoon. Stupid thing we we do. But this was a ward in which everyone was having the same thing. Bypass. And the fellow in the next bed was there first before this Buddhist guy. He had his bypass one afternoon, and it was that evening when his wife called me at the monastery in serpentine, and she was very, very agitated. The reason she called me. She said she had just been to see her husband at the hospital, and her husband had asked how Jack was the fellow who had just had the bypass. And she said, I had a wonderful, successful operation that is now only ICU recovery. When the truth of the matter is, she told me that Jack died, the operation wasn't successful and he said that she lied to her husband. She said that was the first time in 30 years she told an untruth deliberately to her husband. She thought that if she had told the truth, the man in the next bed who her husband befriended, who had the same operation her husband was going to face in 1 or 2 days time, if she had had told the truth that that guy had died. She thought her husband might have worried so much, would have been in so much fear that that would lower his chances of surviving the operation. As it was, her husband came that close to dying. His operation was successful, but it was touch and go for many, many hours. He pulled through. So when she told me that she'd lied to her husband by telling her husband that the fellow hadn't died when he had out of concern for her husband's safety. I told her in that situation, probably your lie was justified. Perhaps it was coming from wise compassion and concern. Maybe if he'd have told the truth. Your husband may not have survived. I think many people cannot understand her situation, and many of you would probably do the same. And but I mention that particular example to say that, okay, in some situations it's okay to lie, but only once every 30 years. In other words, it's a rare thing. It's an exceptional thing, but it's the exception which makes it important for us to understand how this common thing all works and why it works. The whole thing, though, you're coming out of compassion, you're coming out of some wisdom. You're trying to do the best for everybody. So how does that fit with the soldier in the front line? Most of the people which I met at this conference were actually in supporting positions of the Army. They were dentists. They were accountants. I remember this monk who was at our monastery for 1 or 2 years. He told me that before he was a monk, he was a Gurkha. And those Gurkhas in the British Army were fearsome soldiers. So I was a bit concerned about having him in our monastery in case he misbehaved. And I had to tell him off. You got to be very careful who you tell off. But then he told me that his job in the British Army as a Gurkha was in the Accounts department. So I thought, I don't need to be afraid of him. But of course, most people in such military are support staff who made it. There were dentists and accountants and other such things. So they don't really have that moral dilemma. The moral dilemma were for the people in the front line. And I was listening intently when one of these soldiers, who was a mature soldier, who had served in many, many campaigns and who had never been in front of the rifle, pulling the trigger to listen to how he felt about what he'd done is now as a Buddhist and how he felt. And I really respected this because I have never felt, actually, I did fire a gun in fun when I was in Guatemala, but I was a coconut tree and missed my mouse. But I've never actually fired a gun or any weapon at a human being or even an animal. So I don't know how it feels. I always feel it's presumptuous to judge other people. You don't realize the situation or the pressures they're in. Oh so, so interested to hear him say how he felt at the time and how he feels afterwards. And he always believed that what he was doing was justified at the time, but what he was doing was for the greater good, that it was out of compassion rather than out of any ill will. Now that's how he felt. That was clear from what he said was how he justified that to himself. I don't know if I can believe him. So how do we actually know whether such actions are justified or not? And now we come to another part of Buddhism, which I've always found incredibly useful to find out whether what we actually believe, what we see of our intentions, is really what's there or not, or whether we are deceiving ourselves to see whether it really is possible to be a Buddhist soldier in the front line. It's very easy to convince ourselves that what we're doing is for the greater good, because that's what, say, Islamic suicide bombers do. That's what terrorists do. Think of blowing up the Twin Towers. Yeah, it's going to cost another thousands of lives. But in the long run, it's going to be better for everybody. The idea of dropping a bomb in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Because that was saved. No more American lives afterwards. That's the justification people give. And you've got to respect that. That's how they think at the time. But is that really right? Thinking. Is that clear thinking? And because of this, I mentioned to the military here that whenever we make an ethical decision like this in Buddhism, we have four considerations we should really look at before we make a decision to make sure that it is a fair decision. And those four things are to make sure we're not acting out of self-interest or self desire, not acting out of ill will or hatred, not acting out of stupidity or delusion, and fourthly, not acting out of fear. Is the four things which the Buddha said you should consider very deeply before you make one of these actions, which could be bad karma or could be good karma. Good to find out which one it is. Find out. Are you really acting out of positive motives or are you acting out of the negative motives? This is actually looking at those motives very clearly. No one is one really acting out of self-interest. So, for example, that Doctor Who was performing the operation to actually abort one or just to leave them alone and let three die? He had to really think, you know, is there anything in me in this for my career, for my reputation, my financial advantage? If there's anything there which is in self-interest, it should be pushed aside, because no is not a consideration when you're making these tough decisions. That's even the case if you're at war. It's not about saving my life. I always remember what sort of Gandhi once said he he said in his famous comment, I can see a thousand reasons for giving my life for a cause, but I can't see one reason for taking the life of another. You know, he was a selfless man, so he would actually put himself his life on the line for his cause. He said he could not see a reason for taking the life of another. So it should be that degree of selflessness in your decision making process, even sometimes. If it's that if this was, you know me, I'd hope as a monk if it was either you know, me or here, my attacker was about to kill me, and the only way I could prevent that was for killing him first. I'd expect myself, okay, you can kill me, and I'll take the bullet rather than give a bullet to you. That degree of selflessness is something which we build up, you know, as monks and sacrificing ourselves, not being so concerned about ourselves. But self-interest should not be part of one's decision making instead of self-interest. It shouldn't be just about the other. It should always be us. As I keep on saying here about us, the common interest rather than self-interest. And obviously we should be very careful never to act out of ill will, never really wanting to harm another person or to harm ourselves. While the decision making should be coming from a sense of heartlessness, of really good will. Now, this is a complicated one here, because sometimes we have to harm to help that old Buddhist saying that if you got a fishbone stuck in your throat, you have to put your finger in that throat and pull that fishbone out, even though it hurts, it hurts in a moment. But the long term benefit sort of is much, much better than that few moments of pain putting out the fishbone. So as a Buddhist, does it mean we sort of so soft and passive we never stand up and assert, no, a stand for what is right, even though it can be hurting another person. And we have to look at the, the, the bigger picture. It's the same when people tell me that they're running a company or they're running an office, and sometimes someone has to get fired and they say they feel terrible about firing other persons, that's really hurting them, and say that they should really consider not just that person. Consider the everybody involved and the whole company. Because if there is one person who's causing a huge amount of problems. Then you should be compassionate to the other people who put up with them as well. That's what I've learned. Being an abbot of a monastery, sometimes when you have a person come and stay at our monastery in serpentine, they may have a lot of social and psychological problems even. And then, you know, I want to be kind and compassionate towards them, because I know to staying in a monastery in that very positive environment can really help them. They can really grow and become better human beings. But at what expense? To all the other monks in the monastery. I remember once when we had an alcoholic come and stay with us, and he was going through detox in our monastery, which was, number one, very dangerous because we didn't really have enough understanding about the medical effects of going through detox. But also, this was a character we didn't know about. We didn't know whether he was going to be violent or create any problems at all. At that time, I gave him the benefit of the doubt, but I had to really be concerned about all the other people in the monastery as well. There are times when you say, well, no, I don't think we can cope, you know, with your problem and have to ask the person to leave. That's not compassionate to the person. It's compassionate to the group. So sometimes, you know when you look at an action, it might be harming one person, but overall it's compassionate to the many. That's why sometimes you have to when you're considering am I acting out of ill will? You have to always see the bigger picture. Now, your main motive is for the greatest happiness of the greatest many. So be careful you're not acting out of ill will. And the hardest one to consider when you're making one of these ethical decisions is. Have you got all the facts? In the case of that doctor performing that abortion. No. He had the time and the expertise that he to see now what his options were there to ask no other doctors, other specialists to see whether there's any other alternative now to see whether it really was true, if he did let the, uh, the pregnancy go according to his natural course, you know, would the three people die? Was that 100%? So he had to do all the information in. And sometimes that's the hardest one of all, because often one hasn't got the time and the luxury of the hours needed to make that decision. So one has to find out the best one possibly can using. Not everything. One has to get all the facts. And I'm going to come back to that in a moment. Sort of making sure we never acts out of delusion or stupidity. And the last thing is to make sure never acts out of fear. And of those four considerations, before making a decision to understand that it really is going to be ethical. I always think that that's perhaps the most important, to make sure whenever acts and makes decisions out of fear, because I know that in religions or philosophies which are dogmatic, one uses fear to say that if you don't keep your precepts, you're gonna go to hell. And we describe what it's like at hell. In a way. You know where you get boiled in oil. Whatever else happens in hell for you. So acting out of fear is never an option to have a sensible ethical outcome. We have to remove fear. It is because of the problem of fear that we want to remove all dogma and even as law as well, because too often people have a decision to make and they're afraid of the legal consequences of that decision. And sometimes they make a wrong decision, which is legal, but which doesn't fit with what they think is compassionate. And of course, I'm here going into the area of euthanasia. There are many doctors and nurses probably here today who have hastened a person's death. In other words, no committed. An act of euthanasia is illegal. They did a lot of compassion. And probably they did the right thing. Again. If you were sold to the front line, it's like being a a nurse on the front line or a doctor. You have a patient there who is suffering. A patient like one person once asked me, can you take me out the back and shoot me? Because they were suffering so much at the end with their cancers. How do you make those decisions? Make sure you're not acting out of self-interest. Maybe you might be the beneficiary of their will, and you are short of a few bob. There is no reason. There's no reason to go down that line. You should be selfless and say no ill will. And it has to be informed, not out of stupidity. You really do know what the options are, and the likelihood of no recovery, or the likelihood of more pain, or the likelihood of more distress. And also no fear. And that's one of the problems I have with our legal system, because the fear comes up because of the restrictions of the law. I think that's a place where law should not go, because it just creates a fear which skews the decision making. And sometimes decisions, bad decisions are made out of fear. And sometimes that when I hear of cases where people have made a decision which feels right to them in spite of the fear of the consequences. I really applaud such people and think there's such strong good examples to us all. And the one which comes up and the one which I quoted at this Mod conference because this was the military, I quoted that soldier in the Vietnam War, uh, who was the only one of a troop of soldiers to refuse the order to go in to a village in Vietnam, kill every man, woman and child. That was the famous My Lai massacre. Someone told me here that a documentary had been made of that massacre 25 years afterwards. Those not old enough to remember that during the Vietnam War, there must have been about 68. Could have been later, I'm not sure. Uh, the US, a troop of US soldiers led by Lieutenant Calley, had the orders to go into a village which was supposed to be infiltrated by the enemy and kill every man, woman and child without exception, in that village. Eventually, a journalist found out what had happened, and it became a national scandal. Lieutenant Calley was court martialed, put in jail, later pardoned by President Nixon. But this enterprising documentary traced as many of those soldiers as they could find to actually to investigate how they felt 25 years on. And I could have been 35 years old. I'm not sure because it was a recent documentary, but it was a long time after the event, and it seemed that all of those soldiers who followed the orders and killed men, women and children, all of them had huge social, psychological, personal problems. None of them had what you might call a happy, contented, successful life. They were alcoholics or depend upon drugs alone, with no family. Obviously they could not stand themselves. However, there was always an exception. Not exception was an Afro-American soldier. He was the only one who refused the order. Of refusing an order at war was understood to mean 3 or 4 years in military jail. If you ever heard of the military jails in the United States, well, let alone the military jails, the ordinary prisons in the United States, that far worse than anything they have in Australia. And far worse than that still is a military presence. So this Afro American soldier who joined the military to get out of the ghettos and to have a future outside of being in a gang or being a criminal. For many, it was the only way out. He joined the military. He had a very limited education, apparently. But when the order was given, go into that town and shoot everybody without exception, including little children. He refused, knowing that the consequences were going to be four years in jail. In a military jail. He took that. But now, 70 years on, he's the only one of those soldiers who has a good life who's happy, content. You can understand why he was a person who disregarded the fear of the consequences. He never made a decision out of fear. And that way his decision was ethically good. And the result of that good karma. Yeah. Four years in jail. But I don't know how many other years, 20, 30, 40 years of a happy life. It was worth it. People like that you can admire, who will not give way to fear, will not have any self-interest. You know the ethical good and the ethical bad because they know it's cancer inside. It's not compassionate. It's not good. People should know that sometimes, though, they disregard those feelings. Out of those four things self-interest, ill will, delusion and fear. That's the reason why people make wrong ethical decisions. So before we make those decisions, even if the shoulder to shoot or not to shoot, to abort or not to abort, we should follow. Those four ethical guides are reacting out of self-interest, are reacting out of your will. Is it delusive? Are we acting out of fear? We can take them off. We're not acting out of any of those. The chances are huge. Chances are you're making good karma. It's coming from the right place. It's compassionate no matter what the act or that speech is. Going back to delusion that I did mention earlier about the vets, or putting someone out of their misery, or putting the kangaroo out of their misery when you hit them on the side of the road. And of course, as you all know, you probably heard here before. In most cases, you're not putting the animal out of their misery. You're putting the animal out of your misery simply because you can't stand to see something suffer. But the delusion part of this, uh, uh, ethical problem of, you know, euthanasia or taking an animal to the vet and asking it to be put down. You may have heard me answer that question here in a very useful way that if ever that happens to you. Looking at your animal and the vet tells you I have to put the animal down, or that if you happen to be a vet and you have a dog or a cat there, which is very sick and you're considering sort of killing that animal, what should you do? Again, that's one of these ethical problems out of compassion and kindness. You see an animal suffering. You don't want anything to suffer. Then again, your precepts sometimes say that you shouldn't kill. What should you do? And the answer to this question, which no I've been giving for a long time now, is very powerful, and it's an indicator of how to solve these problems. And the answer is very simple in its formulation, but very deep in its meaning. If that is a dog or a cat and they're very, very sick, you are responsible for them, either as the vet or the owner asked the dog. Ask the cat if they've had enough and they want to die. It's a very simple question, and obviously that those people who have cats and dogs or who are sensitive enough as a vet, you know that you can communicate with your animals just like your animals can communicate with you, not on the verbal level. And they won't even call it a psychic level sub verbal. You know the animal, you love the animal and sometimes you just need to look at it and ask that question. The most important thing is to ask the question and then you'll get an answer. Sometimes that cat or that dog has had enough pain I can't stand anymore. In that case, it's the cats decision they want to go. You may even argue. Then you're not killing the cat or the dog. It's the cat's decision. You just listened and interpreted it with a clear mind. But sometimes, no matter what that cat or that dog looks like, you look at it and it says, no, it's not ready to go. It doesn't want to go. It should be. You know, the cat's call. And that's a practical way. And it does work. There's one of the old members of our Buddhist society. Well, I shouldn't say the word old, long standing members of our society who came to see me a few months ago and said, that's what happened with her dog. The dog was very, very sick with the cancer. She took it to a vet. The vet said has to be put down there keeping alive. You're just not being compassionate, not being caring. You can't do that to any animal to cause it, to torture, to be tortured so much by the cancer. But she took the darker side. Just ask it. Do you want to go? Are you ready to die? She heard very clearly. You know in her heart she felt it. Each one of you is intuitive enough to do this. If it's your dog. Your cat. She heard. No, I'm not ready. I don't want to die. So she refused the vet's advice and took the dog home. The reason why this is a classic story was because the dog made a full recovery. And she was so pleased because even the vet was completely bamboozled by that shouldn't have happened. The dog fully recovered. So it's a wonderful thing to ask the cat or ask the dog. And then please know that you are not. If you like killing the dog, it's the dog's call. The dog wants to go even if you're the vet. You see here that takes away a lot of the the moral problem. The ethical problem of this. It's the same if you happen to be in that situation where you are the next of kin, and it may be, say, your mother is in a coma and the doctor said, I need your permission to turn off the machine. What would you do? Of course, that's such a difficult decision to make because even though your mum or your dad is in a coma, it doesn't mean they're dead and people sometimes come out of a coma. When the doctors are just so surprised. That should not happen. But it does. And many of you know that I often go to Singapore and the president of that Buddhist fellowship, and she, her auntie was in such a situation. And I heard her talk about what happened. She was in a coma for many days. And as she survived that coma, but she told the story of what it was like to be in a coma and come out. It was a very, very rare and interesting story that she was in. She called it the very, very dark place. I don't know how long. And what brought her out was the sound, what she thought was temple bells tinkling. She was a Buddhist, and I noticed from deep meditation it sound as the last of the senses, the five senses of seeing, hearing, smell, taste and touch which disappears when you go into deep meditation. So first, which comes up again afterwards, in a coma. They won't see, smell, taste, even touch goes first of all. The first thing to turn on again afterwards is sound. So if you have got anyone in a coma, please talk to them. If any sense is working, it's sound much more than physical touch. So that's what she heard. She heard a sound that brought her back into being alert in her body. But like many people in a coma who get to this stage of consciousness, they can hear and feel and even see. She was unable to communicate back. She couldn't move any of her limbs. She couldn't even move her eyelids. Certainly not speak. But she was there in this body which she could not move. Perfectly aware. Listening to the doctor describe her situation to her sons, and the doctor said it was hopeless. There was no possibility of any cure. She would be in his coma like this for months, with no possibility of coming into full consciousness again. Sir. The dart was asking, shall we turn off the life support? She was hearing this as she could say. I'm here. Don't do it. For being a Chinese family. All the other children passed the buck to the eldest son. It's your decision, he said. You can't do this. It's our tradition. So the eldest son was there for this decision. I remember this auntie telling me that she willed her son to say, don't turn off the machines. There is communication there, even with mind to mind, that happens. And the son said. Keep her going for another day. That's all she needed within her 24 hours. She started to move her limbs just slightly, but enough to show the doctors that she was recovering, and from that she made the full recovery. And you would not believe that she was and had been in a coma. Be walking and speaking like a normal person of her age. That happens. And that's one case of it happening. So what should you do if someone was in that situation? Ask the person that may be in a coma. You just ask the question and you listen. You'll be able to feel whether there's someone there or not. Sometimes you do that. There's no one there. They're gone. In which case, when you tell the doctor to turn off the machine, you're not kidding anybody. They're already gone. It's just a machine of a body kept going by another machine. The life is gone. Other times you ask that question that you know you can't do this. That means the life is still there. Keep it going. When you ask the question, you get these wonderful answers. Another problem is we never ask the right question, which is why we're not acting out of wisdom. We're acting out of delusion. So these are ways we can actually face the problem here, this difficult ethical problem. And as one of the soldiers told me, what's the difference between me on the front line? And a vet was putting down animals in CAS who there's some compassionate reason for them to die. And of course, the vet would ask the question where the person wanted to die or not. Soldiers never asked that question. Which is why it is so difficult to be a soldier and to be a compassionate, kind person. The very ethos you've got orders to kill. And if you don't keep those orders, you get into big trouble. And sometimes, like that soldier, it's probably better not to keep those orders. I remember I had Charles advice when people were drafted into the army in Thailand. And Sumner were devout Buddhists, and they wanted to go a wall or just hide and not actually join up. But it was conscription. And his advice was, no, no, you have your duty. You have to join. And he told them to train really, really well, especially on the firing range. So they were accurate shooters, so that if they were in a conflict, they could always aim successfully over the the enemy's heads. Make sure you miss, you say. But that's the easy case. In the case of the soldier joins up and they are in that situation and they do pull the trigger and kill. It may be ethically wrong, but it's also ethically wrong with me to ask you to judge them, to condemn them, to not forgive and love them. Because it's such a difficult situation, which we are in. It's the same when a person makes the wrong call, when they're considering an abortion, or when they're considering putting down their dog, when they're considering turning off the machine of their loved one in a hospital, or when they're a nurse or a doctor looking after people. If they do make a wrong call, they do make a mistake. If they've really considered it carefully and they really thought they were not acting out of self-interest. And most soldiers, they don't act out of self-interest. They try and stop the ill will business. But sometimes it is that delusion, and certainly the fear they are in at such situations. Please show some compassion and forgiveness. People do get themselves in difficult situations in life. Girls get themselves pregnant. We do have dogs and cats, which we love, but they do get really sick. We've only got a certain amount of resources and money to look after. Her people who are in a coma. These are tough decisions to make. A lot of time, as one of our monks pointed out. We talk about calmness. Sometimes you can't even say it's good or bad. You say it's good and bad. It's a mixture of karma. It's what's called black and white karma. And as long as it's done with consideration, with what you think, it's compassion. Even if you do make mistake, it's not that bad. Karma. The worst karma is when it's not considered. Not considered. It really is out of real world, out of selfish desire, not seeing the full picture. And that's the sort of soldiers we don't want in any army. The ones who have a sense of ethics, even if I don't agree completely with the ethics, we do have a sense of discipline. We do have a sense of restraint, at least if they do make the wrong decision. It's black and white karma. They really think they're doing the right thing, but maybe they may be deluded. And such, the outcome of that won't be that bad. Result of people who perform black and white karma. Though many of them get reborn in the human race, making have another chance. It's not that bad. So we try and keep it in perspective. So this talk that I've gone over time, now I'm going to open it up for questions now. Is an investigation into the karmic effect of killing the moral consequences of this, and actually how we can make this investigation to find out what we're doing is good or what we're doing is bad. It's not such a simple question. When I went into that mode, I really thought being a soda was bad. Now I realize that's just too simplistic. And when I had to sort of go deeper. When one goes deeper, one can also answer the questions with things like euthanasia, abortions, and taking your dog or cat to the vet. Get some deeper understanding to remember. It's whether you're coming from compassion, good motivations that is imperative, and to make sure you're coming from those positive motivations. Go through those four checks no self-interest, no ill will, no delusion or stupidity. No fear. And if you can actually take those things off, then I think you can be pretty sure the likelihood is you're making a good decision. In the end is your call. You have to make that decision. Or if your cat or dog score or it's a person in a coma score. In most situations, that's what you have to do. If it's your call, make sure you make a wise decision. And even if it's the wrong decision, you won't be criticized by making mistakes is often how we learn. Being afraid to make mistakes is how we keep in the delusion for age after age after age. We learn from mistakes. Okay, that's the talk. Tonight, the investigation into the ethics of murder. Okay. Has anyone got any comments or questions about what I've said this evening? Yes. Yes, yes. Okay. How you forgive the person you talking about? You asked a question about the, uh, the person, I think, in Virginia Tech University who killed 32 people. I think it was. How could he as including himself. And how can you forgive such a person? The first stage of forgiveness is always seeing something more than that crime. To see a bigger picture than that massacre. First way of forgiving anybody is to see more than that terrible, hurtful, cruel act which they performed, to see where they came from, what they did as a young man, as a student, because there's more to their life than one day. I've often said when I've gone traveling, that in all the prisons which I visited, and I visited quite a few both here and overseas, I've never seen a criminal yet in my life. There's no such thing as a criminal. There are only people who have done crimes. There's no such thing as a rapist. There's people who've done those terrible rapes. There's no such thing as a terrorist. As a person who does terrorist acts. Now, that may seem simplistic, but you can see that when somebody does this huge, enormous amount of harm in the community, that's all we focus on to the exclusion of everything else, which is why we can't forgive. When you see what else they did. There is an opportunity for forgiveness. We realize that not a criminal, that a person has done a crime, but not an assassin. The people who've done assassinations and not a murderer, a person who's done murder 32 times, seeing the bigger person is away. We can see there's a reason to forgive. There's something to forgive there. More than those terrible acts. If you can understand that and understand how the enemies which we have from time to time when people have hurt us, cheated us, let us down. Why do we make enemies of us? And why can't we forgive? Because we just focus on the hurt which they've given us, pain which they've created. We can't see anything more than that. That's why they don't deserve to be forgiven. See the bigger picture? Some of these so-called criminals I've seen. And murderers are such kind of wonderful people. It is strange when you go into a prison, you see this person who's a notorious criminal. Perhaps the most notorious criminal I've ever seen is Ronnie Kray, one of the Kray twins in England. They shook your hand. And was this really this nice, charming fella? And I was with this other monk and he said, I want to get a few quid. I'll give a donation to your monastery. See the bigger picture? You can see the bigger picture, then there can be forgiveness. I don't know, I did seeing the aircraft coming over there was, I think in the time magazine, I'd only looked over the my shoulder. The person sitting next to me was reading all about this fellow, his history and everything. I'm sure it's everything about the fellow which was bad and terrible and horrible. I probably never mentioned some of the wonderful things which he did, some social service he did as a kid or something, or how much he loved his mum and cared for his sisters. We can only see the bigger picture that forgiveness becomes possible. That's always the first step in forgiveness, to see what else they did other than those who endless acts that made sense. Yeah. I. So it's very challenging to sort of open with open arms as a person who's done such crimes. Of course, it's very difficult to do, but this is, I said, the first step of forgiveness. Forgiveness is not forgetting or ignoring the problem. Forgiveness is like allowing a way out of the the pain and the hurt. First step of forgiveness is to see the bigger picture, to see the positive sides in that person. And the second part of the whole process is the rehabilitation of making amends. Some there must be some making amends for the terrible things which they did. And I don't mean by punishment, I mean some sort of service, some that they can do for others. Uh, one of the inspiring stories which I came across when I was in San Francisco about 15, 16 months ago, there was a young man, I forget what his name was. He was in San Quentin jail awaiting execution. And he was the founder of one of the big street gangs in San Francisco called the Crips. He had murdered several people. He was circuit court sentenced and was about to be executed. There was a big campaign in San Francisco to commute the sentence to life imprisonment, because this young man had written many books and was counseling a huge number of young people out of those gangs. Because of his experience with being a gang leader on the streets of San Francisco, being a really bad guy. Having understood if you like the error of his ways, he was using his experience to urge you to take many other sort of young kids away from those streets. And he was so effective. A huge campaign was being, um, organized to try and ask the then governor and still governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger, to please don't kill this guy. He's too valuable. He's actually helping where other people just cannot help. Unfortunately, Arnie Schwarzenegger thought that forgiveness was a girlie thing, and he signed the death warrant. That's what they were quoting in the papers. And it's a terrible thing to show Americans at the time. But, you know, there was one case where there was a positive angle to forgiveness. Yeah, obviously that had to have some, uh, keep in jail, but he could actually do something. So why kill someone who's actually helping? And maybe the person who has committed such a horrendous sin, maybe in the future they're there to say job is actually to make sure no one else does that. To get a positive outcome from a negative experience. And unless we do forgive, we will always be in fear and will be imprisoned, you know, by the memory of that event. Forgiveness is the first stage. So the first stage of forgiveness is seeing the bigger picture. And we get to the final stage of forgiveness. Only then we're free. A why be imprisoned by that? Why is everyone afraid? So forgiveness frees one from fear. So does that sort of answer your question starts to love. All. Right. Yes. Yes. You're saying for the sake of the video here, that he reminded of the Buddhist monk at home who spoke for many of the boat people who escaped that country after the Vietnam War. And on the way to freedom, were accosted by Thai pirates and raped, robbed of all their money. And instead of asking for anger to those Thai pirates and fishermen who performed such horrendous deeds to helpless, vulnerable people, he said to empathize. As a way of forgiving, letting go is true. Until one forgives, one is always being raped again, until one lets go, when it's always in that situation again and again, again and again. Every time you hate, you remember the cause of that terrible act, the cause of that hate. You are reliving the trauma once again. Only through forgiveness, through letting go. Can we move on and be free. Okay, so sorry about this. No jokes this evening, but there's a serious talk and I hope that you enjoyed it. And thank you for that question. We've gone on a bit longer this evening, so now I have the final word from our president. And if you're still sitting there, if your knees are killing you, please don't murder. Okay. Okay. Society so needs to protect itself with the question just asked and doesn't, uh. If someone has done some terrible, terrible act, uh, how does society protect itself? I think was the question I've added a little bit there. And of course, that forgiveness does not mean ignoring does not mean okay. The person is, uh, kill 32 people. I never mind guy. Just don't do it again. And off you go back into society. Obviously that's not a wise way of going about things, that there has to be protection in the same way that if a person has got bird flu, they have to be taken out of the community and protected for a while, that they are still infectious for the safety of the community. But if we put someone in quarantine, we don't look upon that as a punishment. We look upon that as a compassionate, caring thing to do. So if you look upon like imprisonment as a quarantine of a person who has a social illness or a psychological disease, I think that's a far more positive way of looking at, uh, taking a person out of society for the protection of others and for their protection. And who knows, perhaps I suggested this a few times. The sentence should be indeterminate. The same way that you stay in hospital until they are not infectious anymore, until the disease is over, no matter how long that takes. Are Ahan. Some are simple. Darbar a why would I go and are happy? What day? So what culture I go what I am all the Manama sun. So cutie pie or a water or a sango? Sun Kong a mani.