Sunday night dinner, was one of the most memorable life experience. I had dinner with Tracey, Weng, C.S and his boss, James. Halfway through our salads and steaks, James posed an interesting question. He mentioned about Tracey’s goldfishes, He thought the fishes were miserable as they were puny and looked very weak. He suggested about releasing them. And then he made of an example of a guy, who out of kindness, wanted to release the poor fishes. So he asked the million dollar question. Did the person generated Merit. My good friend, Weng; instantly said no. Instead, he created a bad karma.
I could see James’s expression as he proceeds to interrogate Weng like the Spanish inquisition. Throughout the course of the dinner, They were both trying to get their point of view across each other. At the end of it, there was a bit of tensed moment, so my friend decided to stopped to debate by keeping silent, the golden rule to end all kinds of ‘intriguing’ discussions.
Tracey and I could see Weng and James s’ point of view. Weng was focusing on the end results of putting a goldfish in an environment that would lead to the it’s demise. What started with good intention has ended up in a negative reaction, Hence an unwholesome karma has been created. On the other hand, James was stressing out on the intention of the doer. If the intention of the doer was pure and selfless, as in the doer acted in a way that benefited the other party, the Doer is said to have generated merit. By you indicating to the doer that its intentions were futile would lead the person who informed the doer to have created an unwholesome karma and not done by the doer.
Sounds very ‘Chiem” (deep)? Well it is and it is also easy to comprehend. The main question was focused on the Intention. With intention, comes action and that leads to a reaction or consequence. Thus is the law of Karma. Since the focus of the question was about intention, so the doer in this case ‘has’ generated merit. Why? because the intention was selfless, it was done without a self benefit or otherwise, selfish motive. However, if the doer had a selfish intention or motive, then the act had become defiled and the karma created becomes unwholesome.
Similarly, on a deeper level, supposedly the doer would know that by releasing the gold fish into a drain would result in it’s early demise as the environment was not fit for it’s living conditions, the doer will select a suitable condition and release it. This is compassion with wisdom.
However, if one were to see this act beyond what is right and what is wrong, then you will see the original nature of life. To see this beyond the concept of duality is what all Buddhist in the world, especially Zen practitioners are trying to achieve. Therefore, to see this act beyond the means of right and wrong. What do you see?
That was a memorable dinner experience indeed.
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