{"id":7379,"date":"2010-09-22T00:35:28","date_gmt":"2010-09-21T16:35:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/moonpointer.com\/new\/?p=7379"},"modified":"2010-09-22T00:35:28","modified_gmt":"2010-09-21T16:35:28","slug":"why-balance-good-and-evil","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/moonpointer.com\/new\/2010\/09\/why-balance-good-and-evil\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Balance Good and Evil?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

A Buddhist friend whom I did not know too well commented during a group chat that just as the universe has balanced energies of the Yin and the Yang, it is necessary for\u00a0 individuals to have balanced positive and negative aspects too, in terms of character. I think he is one of those who clings to the idea of balance of everything being harmony. Yes, this is clearly non-Buddhist thinking because are we supposed to be as equally good as evil? What good does being evil do? Being evil does not lead to Buddhahood; it only hampers it. True harmony is when we align to our pure Buddha-nature.<\/p>\n

He also commented that it’s better to have a non-Buddhist spouse – so that there are some differences – which offers more opportunities for one to practise the Dharma. This is again seriously flawed thinking – because having a supportive like-minded Buddhist spouse in most cases is clearly better than having a quarrelsome opposite-minded spouse as the other extreme. The Buddha also urged spouses to practise the Dharma together. If it’s better to have a non-Buddhist spouse, does this mean one should not share a shred of the Dharma with one’s significant other? How uncompassionate that would be!<\/p>\n

He echoed the idea that a Buddha cannot train us as well as an ‘enemy’, as Buddhas will always be nice to us. Then again, Buddhas can skilfully manifest various forms to give us opportunities to practise the Dharma well! Meanwhile, spouses who are opposed to learning and practising the Dharma are not manifestations of any Buddha!<\/span> He also said there is little need to bother changing people as their horoscopes kind of tell us their characters already, which are hard to change. Er… not that horoscopes should be believed in 100%, how can one practise the Bodhisattva path then, of changing oneself, and of helping others to change for the better? We should just do our best and forget the rest.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Buddhist friend whom I did not know too well commented during a group chat that just as the universe…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[223,121,126,198,515],"class_list":["post-7379","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mix","tag-bodhisattva","tag-buddha","tag-buddha-nature","tag-evil","tag-good","wpcat-1-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/moonpointer.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7379","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/moonpointer.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/moonpointer.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moonpointer.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moonpointer.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7379"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/moonpointer.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7379\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/moonpointer.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moonpointer.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moonpointer.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}