MEDITATIONS: THE DHAMMAPADA, CHAPTER NINE
Evil
Virtues are those traits which facilitate the affirmation of Fate. They are components of character that, when cultivated, either bring out one’s Will to Power or else reorient the individual will to be in better accord with the world. Both manifestations of virtue belong to noble, life-affirming stock. The man who shapes the world to his will looks upon it and says, “This life is good.” The man who shapes his will to the world looks upon it and says precisely the same. The man who shapes himself and the world according to what is proper in his time and place is a sage—unattached, his soul becomes as light as a dancer’s; he wanders far and unfettered, untethered to the earth. He is the river whose ever-changing flow courses through the lowest valleys, revitalizing life from its lowest point.
Vices are the salve of life denialist. They are distractions, redirections, and opiates of weak men. The slave is foremost slave to his more vicious self. He cannot bring his Will to Power into the world because he is subjugated by his own more primordial wills. Likewise, he fails to reorient his desires in accordance with the world. That would require mastery over himself to whom he is enslaved. Therefore, the vicious man can only reject this life and seek to escape or destroy it. Thus is evil born from weakness, from the man without virtues, without merits—so the Buddha warns:
Be quick to do good,
Restrain your mind from evil.
When one is slow to make merit,
One’s mind delights in evil. (Buddha 30)
Be quick, for stalling is a distraction. Each morning, if one determines what good he will do for the day, and if he puts his decision into action, he makes a habit of virtue and thereby becomes the virtuous man as described by Aristotle: he desires what is good, and he is averse to vices which would erode his character.
If, however, one makes a habit of hesitating instead, he does not stand still; he backslides from continent to vice. For delight in evil comes as a consequence of weakness, and weakness comes as a consequence of natural entropy. If one does absolutely nothing, he will age, wither, and starve. A house not maintained eventually falls to ruin, and the rubble eventually returns to the earth. So much faster and with greater suffering does the vicious man make his own return:
Having done something evil,
Don’t repeat it.
Don’t wish for it:
Evil piled up brings suffering. . . .Even an evildoer may see benefit
As long as the evil
has yet to mature.
But when the evil has matured,
The evildoer
Will meet with misfortune. . . .Don’t disregard evil, thinking,
“It won’t come back to me!”
With dripping drops of water
Even a water jug is filled.
Little by little,
A fool is filled with evil. (30-1)
The fool is filled with evil, and it destroys him from the inside out. Karma is not the divine lightning bolt brought down on the head of the wicked, vicious man. Karma is the mental, physical, and spiritual degeneration brought about by vicious habits.
The glutton may seem happy at his feasts, but he is plagued by aches, pains, limitations, and diseases of his own body.
The thief and the brute may seem to grasp their fortunes through subterfuge or force, but their ill-gotten goods must be constantly guarded. There will never be rest, because there will never be trust, only a constant fear and looking over one’s shoulder. There will never be friendships, only stabbings in the back or in the heart.
The liar may come to fame and prestige, but he will never believe that his status is legitimate. No admirer can be genuine for him, for no admirer knows his genuine self.
Though all these vicious types and more can delude themselves for a time, eventually their distractions and opiates become insufficient. Pleasure retreats from those activities which once brought joy, because joy is in no substance nor activity. It is in the hearts and minds of men, and it too can rot when exposed to drop after drop of vicious habituation.
A full cup cannot be further filled. Empty yourself of vice, and do not hesitate to fill yourself with virtue—for he who waits will find his cup filled up again with viciousness, and when he sates his thirst with it, the saccharine taste will make good seem bitter by comparison. He will become able to stomach only that which is decadent, and by the time sweet vice tastes as foul as it makes him, it will be too late—evil will have come to its maturation.
Buddha Siddhartha Gautama. The Dhammapada; Teachings of the Buddha, translated by Gil Fronsdal, Shambala Publications Inc, 2008.
