Two Truths

When discussing the nature of evil from an integral perspective, we are inevitably faced with the seeming paradoxes that are created when approaching the issue from both Judeo-Christian and Buddhist angles. In the West, more emphasis is typically placed upon healthy discrimination, which produces such qualitative distinctions as “good” and “evil” in the first place. In the East, “evil” is more likely to be seen as “confusion,” in which a dualistic judgment of a person is avoided. Obviously, both of these interpretations are true, and indeed one is quite incomplete without the other. Without equanimity and respect for all beings, one can easily fall into judgment without compassion. And without discrimination, one can become impotent to act—after all, “if all is one, nothing can be wrong.”