Right Understanding, cont.

To forgive someone is to cease to harbor resentment against him and to pardon him, i.e., to cease personally to desire to punish him. A saint understands the karmic sequence of a person's criminal actions, loves the person in spite of his actions, and feels compassion for him because of his samsaric pain. Those of us who are not saints forgive by ceasing to harbor resentment against a transgressor. We pardon him for what he has done to us.

When, then, do we forgive and when do we press charges?

The answer, simply and generally, lies in the nature of the offense. If someone insults us, we may wish to excise his lungs and do not easily allow uncomfortable thoughts of forgiveness to supplant such a pleasant desire. Yet, with sufficient grace we manage. We tell our lawyer to forget about the libel or slander and usually learn with some chagrin that he already had.

In this instance, we were the only ones hurt or likely to be hurt by the offense.

When, however, we are not the only ones hurt or likely to be hurt by the offense, the situation changes. If someone calls a man a thief or moral degenerate, the man can forgive his accuser if he chooses; but if the charge is made against his dependent son or daughter, he no longer has quite the same right to overlook the insult. He may not force others into his martyrdom. He must defend against the attack.

A young mother may not wish to yield the family larder to a thieving Baby B. No one may require her to place more importance upon Baby B's hard luck story - however true it is - than she places upon the welfare of her children. Regardless of whether or not the hermit can be faulted for resisting, she surely cannot be faulted for reasonably defending her possessions.

Also, if the nature of a crime is felonious and there is the slightest chance that the criminal may again commit the crime against another innocent person, a man's forgiveness must not be allowed to facilitate another person's victimization. What would we think if a couple of armed robbers murdered everyone in a store except one man who later refused to testify against the killers because he had forgiven them?

We know that, ideally, we ought not to punish Baby B, we ought to rehabilitate him. Ideally, we ought to have intervened in his early life and removed him from his abusive environment and placed him in more congenial surroundings. We also know that not every criminal comes from a flagrantly abusive household. Some of history's worst crimes were committed by members of fine, upstanding families.

Society does, in fact, make an attempt to rehabilitate troubled individuals. For juveniles, there are school counselors, youth hostels, and reform schools. At adult levels, first offenders are routinely treated lightly. Judges order probationary periods and mandate as much counseling as the system provides. Frequently, however, the only deterrent to continued criminal behavior is the fear of execution or, what might be even more intimidating considering the dismal state of our prisons, the fear of incarceration. Fear is a poor replacement for guidance but sometimes fear is all the citizenry is willing to invest in.

Unfortunately many young people enter the system when they are already so psychologically deformed that nothing short of a miracle can restore them. They zip in and out of reformatories, lesser and greater jails and, with a trail of grieving victims behind them, finally end their days on Death Row. (It is then that many Buddhists begin to pay a great deal of attention to them.)

We Nirvana-bound individuals may see these criminals as victims - a view which is perfectly clear to all summit inhabitants but which is not nearly so clear to the victims of the criminals who must observe, for the moment at least, from Samsaric vantage points.

The Chan Man may not ignore the responsibilities of citizenship. If he doesn't like the terms of this social contract, he can apply to another more suitable country. But for as long as he cares to remain within a country, he has to fulfil his obligations as a citizen even as he exercises his rights to exert pressure, by whatever legal means, to change those laws and policies to which he thoughtfully objects.

Yet, in religion, we find many well-intentioned people who persist in advising others to act like saints. Most of the time this religious mawkishness is harmless. A Path-climber may laugh when he is instructed to divest himself of his material goods by a novice who took a vow of poverty last Thursday. But sometimes the advice hurled at him is disturbing and involves more than some bewildering legal ambiguities.

For example, it is difficult to borrow money from a saint. If he has money to lend, he gives it freely. He is responsible only to himself and knows how to get along in poverty. But Path-climbers may not yet be shorn of their assets nor be so free of family responsibility that they can afford to give away needed money. They can agree to lend it and regardless of how substantial the sum, they and their family can be injured if the money is not repaid. If the borrower absolutely cannot pay, the lender is spiritually obliged not only to wait patiently for his money but also to see if there is something else he can lend or do to help the borrower get through his troubles. It's another story when the borrower says he cannot pay but evidences some disconcerting purchasing power to the contrary.

At such a time, would-be saints are rank with directives to forgive the debt. But what does this really mean? Tom owes Jerry a large sum of money and pays him with a check that bounces, and all the checks Jerry wrote against it bounce in turn. Jerry may be unable to cover this deficit. Should he forgive Tom the debt while he sits in jail watching him drive by in his new car? Tom thinks Nirvanic solutions are great but Jerry has some serious doubts.

Without malice or self-pity Jerry should press charges against Tom. He should do this not only because his creditors will likely understand his dilemma (having no doubt suffered their own Toms) and may agree to wait for payment, and not only because Jerry has a civic duty to take a bad-check passer out of circulation and prevent the fleecing of another victim, but also because without conscious confrontation there can be no spiritual progress. Tom has to grow up and accept responsibility for himself. He has to be penitent. He has to repent. He can't do that if all his victims hasten to forgive him his debts just to show how benevolent and spiritually superior they are. Such generosity serves only to stunt him. And it doesn't do a lot for the orderly growth of community morale, either. No one is suggesting that Tom be keelhauled or mutilated. But a little counseling - not to mention restitution - is in order. The law should be allowed to take its course.

If Jerry and Tom were living in a monastery, Jerry should go quietly to the Abbot who is obliged to investigate Tom's excuse for not paying; and if he determines culpability, the full force of his authority must be brought to bear to obtain payment. And then, as Abbot, he must counsel Tom until this flaw of character is corrected. And if the flaw does not submit to correction, the Abbot has to make some tough decisions about Tom.

No one wants to see Baby B punished from crimes that he can't be blamed for committing; but even less does anyone want to see him proceed unimpeded in his criminal ways. As citizens we should want to see him rehabilitated. But as Buddhists we should want to see him saved - and salvation has nothing whatsoever to do with the criminal justice system.

And this is the core of the issue. To save Baby B is not to save him from punishment. To save him is to save him from his ravaging ego. To assist in his salvation is to provide him with an inspiration to repent. By instruction, by example, and by concern not for where he happens to be physically residing but for the alienation and rejection he is suffering within his own mind, do we help him. The change that is required is not in his external environment but in himself. Do we not believe in the redeeming bliss and eternal life of the Buddha Self? Do we not believe in the transformative power of God's Grace? Are we practicing somebody else's religion?

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