NONDUALITY AND CONTRARY STATEMENTS

It all depends on the situation. A pickpocket steals a wallet from someone and that person needed the money to buy groceries. From this point of view the pickpocket is bad. A man in another part of town helps an old lady to change her tire. He is saving her money and also emotional worry about the mechanic and all that it involves. That man is a good man, no? 

Here is the thing: The pickpocket is the one who changed the tire. I just didn’t say so at first. So things are rarely completely one way or the other. Is he good? Is he bad? For argument sake, or decision’s sake, we have to pick one or we will go crazy, be all wishy washy, - so much so that we are not valuable to ourselves or anyone else. We can say that he is a pick pocket because it is the fault of a certain economy. Yet, others do not resort to pick pocketing. The arguments about the ethics, morals, and motivations of it can go on forever.

So, depending on who WE are, most people would just say stealing is against the law and also against most spiritual and religious law. It’s also in poor taste in that is not socially acceptable. So we say,’ He is a bad guy. He is a pickpocket.’ End of story.

Or is it?

If there is a murderer, the pick pocket does not appear half as bad. So we can say,- next to the murderer, this pickpocket performed some small minor crimes in order to feed his hungry child and ailing father, both waiting at home and so very hungry. He also by the way stopped to help an old lady fix a tire, no questions asked. In fact, if you want to know ‘the truth,’ this guy if you followed him around with a secret camera his whole life, - and weighed the good and bad he did…though he did some bad indeed by most standards, is a good guy. So we say, ‘He is a good guy. He made some mistakes, as we all do at some point. He is a good guy. He has his family and even the elderly in mind.’ End of story.

Now here is where the contrary statements also come in. You are talking to an at risk youth, who is thinking of leading a life of crime by joining a gang,- and you tell him the second story,- and he takes it to mean that he can have a license to commit crime, because after all, good people sometimes do bad things. Well, it would be better to tell him that pick pocketing is bad, no two ways about it.

But if talking to someone else, who is thinking that pick pocketing is the worst thing in the world, and the criminal should burn in a hell, - you can point out that millions have been killed in wars and other events, that there are people out there who do horrible, horrible things to other people. You can paint the local pick pocket as a guy who is down on his luck, and wanted a few bucks. And don’t we all want a few bucks? Some fake spiritual people might claim they don’t, that is about it. So now you are making the moralist, the judge, and this extreme person, sees that the pick pocket is not evil.

Depends on who you are talking to.

Two third parties hear you talking to the youth at risk and the, call him, rigid church man. One party calls you contradictory, unreliable, hypocritical even, and does not understand the nuance.

The other party does understand (most people fall into the first category though they themselves act all the time from the second category view just don’t see it or gloss over it).

And that is how it goes. 

As someone told me, the moment you step in front of the crowd so to speak you become a mark.

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