Excuses

[Crazywisdom]

If you need to make an excuse or justify something you have done, then you should not have done it. The action (or lack of) should stand on its own merit.

 

[spiritnoname]

 Excuses and justification have nothing to do with whether you should do it or not, it has to do with expectations of others which can be unrealistic, based on ignorance, or simply socially manipulative.

 Sometimes people want from each other what cannot be given, for instance, expecting an alcoholic surrounded by booze and stressful situations to not drink. Demanding something of a person they cannot give, getting them to promise things with manipulative tactics, then making them out to be bad when they don't do what they said they would. This kind of activity is positively evil.

 Sometimes the merit of our activities is not recognizable to everyone because not everyone knows what's going on.
 
 Sometimes people are simply selfish or expect others to have the same priorities.

 You can demand excuses or justification for anything, it says nothing of the quality of the action or the person who acted.

 

You have two statements here and they are actually contradictory.

 "If you need to make an excuse or justify something you have done, then you should not have done it." - This is saying that an activity should be judged by your response to compensate for the reaction of others to it.

 "The action (or lack of) should stand on its own merit." - This is saying that an activity should be judged by itself, not in whether you have to explain it to others. 

[Crazywisdom]

If i helped my neighbour when she locked herself out of her house, the act of helping would stand on its own, it would need no explaining.

If some one cut in front of me in traffic and i tailgated them to annoy them, as they had annoyed me by making me lose my place in the que, i am justifying my action by the fact that they upset me. My reaction to their action would not stand on its own.

Wholesome  actions need no explaining, with unwholesome ones we seek to justify our actions, to try and convince ourselves we were right (though deep down we know we should not have done the action)

[spiritnoname]

People without wholesome habituation have to justify wholesome actions to themselves.

 For instance, when donating money, most people have to convince and justify to themselves that that was the right thing to do.

 Using what you think as a measure of good or bad is not perfect, and in fact when a person's life is messed up it's usually because they are going by what they think as a measure of good or bad.

[Crazywisdom]

People without wholesome habituation have to justify wholesome actions to themselves.

 For instance, when donating money, most people have to convince and justify to themselves that that was the right thing to do.

People without wholesome habituation need to justify wholesome actions because they are not doing them for the benefit of others, altruistically, they are doing them to feel good about themselves or to look good or generous in others eyes. The motive behind the action is important.

[spiritnoname]

 You know that I have actually been criticized by someone for giving money to good causes. If another person said the same things it might have been praise, that's how warped some people's view of wholesome and unwholesome actions is, and sometimes people like that demand explanations.


 

[Crazywisdom]

Other people may or may not want you to justify your actions to them, it doesn't matter.  What matters is if you need to justify your action to yourself, or feel that you have to justify your actions to others irrespective of whether they want you to justify them.

Deep down we all know right from wrong, and its this deep knowing that we try to discount with our excuses for carrying out unwholesome acts. (deep down we feel we should not have acted in 'such' a way, but its 'ok' because we have a well reason for it, he was rude, she was late etc etc)

[spiritnoname]

 I don't agree with this, I don't think that people normally recognize what is wrong or right, yes it does have some signs in the mind, but I don't think most people would notice them because it's subtle.

 For instance, whenever you propose someone to be kind to their enemies and not hold anger against them,.. some people will find that statement extremely offensive and take you as an enemy. Their instincts actually tell them that forgiveness is wrong, they feel like they're betraying their sense of self and won't stand for it.   

[Crazywisdom]

I don't agree with this, I don't think that people normally recognize what is wrong or right, yes it does have some signs in the mind, but I don't think most people would notice them because it's subtle.

I think we all accept that deep down we have Buddha nature, its our basic nature. There are no virtueous actoins that would need justifying to a Buddha. No excuses needed.

For instance, whenever you propose someone to be kind to their enemies and not hold anger against them,.. some people will find that statement extremely offensive and take you as an enemy. Their instincts actually tell them that forgiveness is wrong, they feel like they're betraying their sense of self and won't stand for it.   

They would be justifying their annoyance at you by the fact they had been offended. They would be angry, when does a correct action result in the person acting becoming anrgy?


A lot of peoples feeling of turmoil in these situations comes from the fact they know it is wrong to behave this way, yet through habituation and examples shown to them by peers etc they persist in these unwholesome ways.

[spiritnoname]

 Excuses and justification come when there is the view that something has been done wrong.
 People's view on what is wrong conduct is not always correct.
 Therefore since people's view can be incorrect, basing what is wrong on if there are excuses and justification is incorrect.

[Crazywisdom]

"Those who act in evil, selfish ways are followed by the thought, 'I have done wrong,' and the memory of the act is stored in karma to work out its inevitable retribution in following lives."

The Lankavatara sutra

[spiritnoname]

 Obviously that is a generalization, people are praised for evil selfish things all the time and they don't have a second thought about it, for instance, killing bugs, you think everyone who kills a bug walks around fearing retribution and thinking it was an evil deed?

 If it were not a generalization then there would not be any need to teach about the weight of karma in regards to knowing and not knowing it was a unwholesome action, since there are such teachings we can see that to take that quotation strictly as it is written would be to pay attention to the words and not the meaning or the teachings are contradictory.

[Crazywisdom]

Your point seems to be that because ignorant people cannot see this truth, it isn't true. By this logic very little that we follow as buddhists would be true either!
We would be limited to practicing at the level of children.

 Name a virtueous action that would need justifying to a Buddha. Virtueous actions - no excuses needed, unvirtueous actions - justification and excuses needed.

 

[spiritnoname]

  I seem to remember at the time when the Buddha's death was approaching one of his students went missing while the others gathered to receive teachings, Buddha asked for this student to be found and brought to him to explain why he was away. The student came and was asked why by the Buddha and explained that he felt it was more important to put into practice what the Buddha had taught him before he left the world than to receive more teachings and so he had been meditating in seclusion. The Buddha praised him.

 I don't remember all the details of this story,.. they might not have been mentioned, a monk told it.

 We are practicing at the level of children, especially beginning practitioners. Much of the teachings don't make sense, we have instructions but don't know what for, we do what our spiritual parents say and later when we get the fruits of practice we understand the why, until then we are like little children and some faith is needed, instinct is actually misleading much of the time, been misleading us for countless lives I expect.

[pummy369]

  I seem to remember at the time when the Buddha's death was approaching one of his students went missing while the others gathered to receive teachings, Buddha asked for this student to be found and brought to him to explain why he was away. The student came and was asked why by the Buddha and explained that he felt it was more important to put into practice what the Buddha had taught him before he left the world than to receive more teachings and so he had been meditating in seclusion. The Buddha praised him.

 

Sometimes you have to choose between two virtuous activities and without the benefit of perfect wisdom to know which one is the most virtuous or the correct choice at this time.  Some examples, I could always stay home with my husband instead of going to puja/teachings/meditations and this would make me a more supportive wife and probably make my husband happier.  The choice is not obvious to me.  There is a family function (a birthday) but there is a puja happening and we are praying especially for someone who has passed away or who is very sick.  If I don't attend the function, I will need to justify to others.  If I do attend, no justification required - except to myself.  I spend more time reading, studying, praying then I do socialising, gardening, making my house pretty, earning money, gossipping...some people take issue with this because they have a different view.  Socialising, gossipping, meeting my friends at the bar - all this would make me a better friend and I have to make excuses why I don't do these things.

The most correct action is not always clear to me and different people have different views about your actions.  Whether to make a justification to them or to ignore them - which is correct action then?

Sorry, I'm not a good debater - my brain doesn't seem to be wired that way but I just had a comment.