seventh world of chan buddhism - Zen Buddhist Order of Hsu Yun

Fortunately for us, these two giants of religion carried on a lively correspondence.
Their dispute about the actions of a certain group of Desert Fathers is a classic discussion
about some aspects of the problems of good and evil, crime, punishment and forgiveness.
Every Buddhist should be familiar with it.
The story at issue concerned a group of Christian hermit monks who lived in the
Egyptian desert during the 4th Century. A band of robbers attacked one of these ascetics and
his cries summoned the other monks who caught the fellows and took them to jail. When
their abbot learned of the event he chastised the monk who had cried out for having been
betrayed by his own thoughts - he had not immediately forgiven his transgressors - and for
having placed such value on his possessions that he called out and caused the robbers to be
taken to jail to suffer punishment. This monk, taking the rebuke to heart, immediately went
to the jail, broke-in, and let the robbers escape.
Merton sided with the monk, or rather, it would seem, with the robbers. "So the
outraged hermits are in reality much more to blame than the robbers, because precisely it is
people like these who cause poor men to become robbers. It is those who acquire inordinate
possessions for themselves and defend them against others, who make it necessary for the
others to steal in order to make a living."
Merton did not itemize the "inordinate" possessions of these hermit monks that so
inspired or coerced the robbers into stealing them.
Suzuki took the opposite view. "We are all social beings and ethics is our concern
with social life. The Zen-man too cannot live outside society. We cannot ignore the ethical
values."
Suzuki acknowledged all the virtues of non-attachment and simplicity but still
thought, "The outcome of the `great hermit's' inner goodness in releasing the robbers from jail
may be far from being desirable."
What do we do, then, about good and evil when we understand why a person may
have become a criminal and we feel compassion for him for having been brought by fate to
his sorry state? What do we do with poor Baby B when he grows up and batters his wife and
children? What do we do with him if he steals our car or murders our neighbor?
Nothing confounds people on the Path more than the questions of crime and
punishment. We know that we ought to forgive someone who commits a crime against us.
But does forgiveness by a victim mean that the criminal should not be punished by society?
Are we justified in insisting that another victim forgive his transgressor? May we forgive
someone and yet, in good conscience, assist society in punishing him?
A civilized society is composed of a mixture of men, some civilized and some clearly
not. Within it, saints are in a definite minority. Civilized societies require laws and if not
CHAPTER 11 RIGHT UNDERSTANDING
S EVENTH W ORLD O F C HAN B UDDHISM
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