[Buddha-l] Ethics and the four way test

[Michel Clasquin]

Evelyn Ruut wrote:

> Hello Michel and fellow list members,
>  
> Yes of course you are right.   The four way test is merely a tool to 
> help one decide what is the best course of action and to find a way to 
> cut through the views and agendas and more mean spirited motivations 
> human beings are subject to.  If you take the time to apply the four way 
> test to something you intend to do or say, it usually gives you time to 
> give it a second thought before saying or doing something you will 
> regret later on.

On that we can agree. Pausing before speaking is always a good idea. Of 
course when I was little my mother taught me a simpler form: "Michel, 
count to ten before you say something angry". I don't think your four 
rules are just on that level - they try to bring some measure of 
reflective thought to bear on the situation.

Now that is IMO a good thing, and I'd go so far as to say that people 
who use the four rules would probably show more moderate speech than 
those who don't. My point was that if you take that same reflexivity and 
apply them to the rules themselves, they too are not absolute.

> The golden rule is also a guideline.  You can play around mentally with 
> that one too.  Supposing you had a person who was masochistic or in some 
> way mentally ill in having no self-value.   Treating others the way they 
> would treat themselves might be very unacceptable to the other person.   

The Golden Rule is rather easy to debunk logically, as you have shown. 
But it has great value in 99% of normal human relations. Good enough for 
me, I do not require 100% accuracy. I am just a sloppy human being 
living in a sloppy, slippery world. "Slip-sliding away" as Paul Simon 
put it.

> Likewise how about the ten commandments?   All of these are guidelines, 
> but the commandments, these seem as though they are meant to be taken as 
> solid rules written in stone.....:-)   

I think Benito is more qualified than I on this point.

Somehow, I find a lot of them are
> too literal for my taste, but they are obviously good guidelines and a 
> lot of people take them as absolutes.   Consider though that the same 
> being who commanded people not to kill, also told them to make war on 
> the residents of the land they wanted.   Presumably this involved some 
> killing.  So apparently these were flexible too at times.

I am no Hebrew scholar, But I have been told that "thou shalt not kill" 
is a mistranslation. The original is "thou shalt not murder". Makes a 
difference, doesn't it?