Okay, so I've been sent some info by someone to like or sign various petitions against pages that show animal cruelty, against military action, against the monetary system, etc.
via a social website.
Please, could you advise on how one should respond, Bhante?
For now, I have offered back a link to the How to Meditate series of videos.
I'm starting to get the feeling that
No, that's not the right way to start this answer.
I don't know that I can answer everyone's questions.
I don't know if I can really answer all questions.
What should I do in this situation?
for, I think, a couple of reasons at least.
One, that a lot of them have context.
How you respond to someone depends a lot on who they are, what they're like.
And
you know, what your duty is and what your, you know, if you work for Facebook or if you work for a social network, for example, you might have a different duty or if you, you know, depending on your situation as well.
And the other one is that
These questions are very, I mean, the answer is, the answer to a lot of these is, quit your job, quit school, drop out, become a monk, live in the forest.
End of story.
Then when people send you things you can say, well, I'm a monk, so it doesn't concern me.
So what I mean to say by that is that the answers that I would give to questions like this are not really going to be the final answer.
And what I mean is that there's just going to be an endless stream of questions like this.
What do I do in this situation?
Because you're living in a complex, complicated environment, constantly bombarded by things that don't really make sense and don't have easy answers.
That's just a general comment on questions of the nature, what should I do in this situation?
I mean if you're asking me what should you do as a monk, what should you do when you're meditating in the forest and a tiger starts growling at you, for example, then this is something that I think, well, this is really what we have to deal with.
But I'm going to throw a caution out there against questions of the nature of what should I do in such a situation.
Because I get a lot of them and I don't really feel totally comfortable.
I can answer them, but I don't feel like the answers are really all that satisfying because they're not really the final answer.
The final answer is quit, leave, run away.
Find a way to simplify your life so that you don't have to deal with such complex situations.
But being sent stuff, I mean, I just don't reply mostly.
I don't reply to so much of the things people send me, which often feels a little bit unpleasant.
People often send me questions, and they're valid questions.
Send me questions in email.
But I've developed some kind of natural filtration system in my mind that most of them I just don't answer.
And then people send me a second one asking me why I didn't answer.
I don't answer that.
If they send me a third one and really start complaining, then I start thinking, okay, okay, time to tell them, explain to them that I just don't answer most of my emails.
Because I'm a monk.
So I've got an excuse.
When you're living in society, you do kind of have a responsibility, no?
I mean, we all have kind of a responsibility to our fellow humans.
Even I consider that in some sense I have to help people who are looking for help.
But, I don't know, I guess if you're asking about what are my thoughts on things that are against things, against animal cruelty, against military action, against the monetary system, I believe in a lot of the principles, I just don't really believe in protesting.
I believe in discussion.
But I think that includes discussion with people who support such things.
People who support the monetary system, I think debating with them is very educational.
If I had the time, I'd be interested in these sorts of debates.
Of course, you need to study.
That's the problem, really, is there's so many issues.
How do you know that they're all wrong, right?
So these three are pretty, well, the first two are pretty clear-cut.
Animal cruelty, most developed people, especially Buddhists, can readily agree that it's wrong.
military action we readily agree that it's wrong but you still have to study in order to realize that right so to know that animal cruelty is wrong you have to have done some at least some study and analysis better yet have done some meditation to help you see clearly that it's wrong
military action a lot of people think in certain circumstances is necessary, is ethical, ethically required.
That non-intervention is unethical, for example.
So you have to study up on that and you have to be clear, study either through study, book study or through meditation practice to get your mind clear in regards to that one.
The monetary system is very complicated.
I don't even know.
I mean, I have my thoughts on it and I'm not really pro-money, but it's such a complicated issue.
What does it mean to say you're against the monetary system, that you want tomorrow to stop using money?
Of course, there'd be chaos, right?
Does it mean that you want to move in this direction or is it some website that actually has a plan to encourage sharing and cooperation as opposed to competition and capitalism?
Or is it just someone saying, down with this, down with this, and just getting angry about things, right?
Pointing out how awful people are, right?
Oh, these corrupt, you know, expose the corrupt business people.
It doesn't really do that much.
You become part of the problem.
When you fight against something, you become part of it.
I guess that's a good answer to this, is that I would, from my point of view, when you fight against something, you become part of the problem.
You can't win by... You can't really fight fire with fire.
You have to fight with patience.
You have to fight with truth.
You have to stand your ground.
You have to say what's wrong.
But you should never get angry and you should never become militant about it.
Us and them and so on.
So how should you respond?
Kindly.
Respond with love.
I think it's the same as the proselytizing answer.
Give them a muffin.
It's going to be my answer to everything.
Send them a muffin.