do you practice the virtues?

[Virola78]

TAO OF THE BANDIT


Once upon a time in ancient China, there was a notorious bandit by the name of Zhi who led a group of outlaws. Together, they committed many crimes while evading the authorities.

One day, after another successful heist, they took a break in their hideout, drinking and talking among themselves. Suddenly, a question occurred to one of the outlaws, a young man. He turned to Zhi and asked: "Hey boss, there's something I can't figure out. Why are you the leader? I mean, you're a powerful guy, but some of us are pretty powerful too. Why is it that you lead and we follow? What is your secret?"

The men laughed at this question, but Zhi answered seriously: "It is actually very simple. I follow the principles of being a bandit."

The young man looked confused. "Principles? Boss, we got no principles. That's why we're bandits!"

"Ah, that is where you are wrong." Zhi smiled his crooked smile: "Not only do we have principles, but we practice the virtues taught by the sages."

The young man thought Zhi had to be joking. "Virtues? Boss, the sages are the highest of the high, while we are the lowest of the low. We can't possibly have anything to do with their virtues!"

The men were about to laugh again, but Zhi silenced them with a glare: "Most people think such things as virtues are only for the good, but they are not. They are actually quite harmful to people in general. That is why we have them too. In fact, there are five main virtues in the life of a bandit."

"Five?" The young man looked at his comrades, but they were just as puzzled as he was. Together, they turned to Zhi for his explanation.

Zhi counted them off the fingers of one hand: "A bandit has to be able to figure out where people hide their treasures. This is the virtue of insight, being able to see what others cannot.

"A bandit has to look at a situation and accurately gauge his chance of success. This is the virtue of clarity, the ability to think and calculate clearly.

"A bandit is willing to be the first to go into a heavily guarded mansion. This is the virtue of courage, leading the way with bravery and strength.

"A bandit is also willing to be the last to leave, covering everyone's exit. This is the virtue of honor, sacrificing one's safety to protect one's fellows.

"Lastly, when we are all back here in the lair, I give all of you an equal share of the loot. This is the virtue of fairness – my being benevolent with you, my followers.

"Together, these five virtues are the Tao of the bandit. If you do not have all five, it will be impossible for you to become a great bandit. This is my secret."

All the men thought hard about what Zhi said, but no one could detect any flaws in his reasoning. Finally, the young man spoke again: "Boss, you also said virtues were harmful to people. What did you mean by that?"

"Think about it," Zhi finished his wine. "A good person has to follow the virtues taught by the sages to be the best good person he can be. Bad guys like us also have to follow the virtues taught by the sages to be the best bad guys we can be. Right?"

The men nodded, and the young man agreed: "Yes, that makes sense."

"Look at the world," Zhi continued. "Most people want more than they have, and if they can get away with taking from others, they will. A lot of them don't only because they know they cannot get away with it. This means they are basically poor bandits who have failed to practice the virtues of the sages. Still with me?"

The young man hesitated, then nodded: "I guess I never thought of it that way."

"Men, there is no escaping the concluson," Zhi grinned in triumph. "If everyone follows what the sages teach, then there will be many more bandits out there who excel at robbing and stealing from others like me! Now can you see why the virtues are actually more harmful than beneficial?"

The men were stunned by this realization. The young man's mouth hung open. And then it was Zhi's turn to laugh.

I would like to know how you define 'good' or 'bad'..
How is your perspective?

 

[sdbc]

That's a nice parable you've got there, haven't seen that before.
I think the answer to question is in fact the point of the story, to cite from a website I found when trying to locate the source of 'Tao of the bandit':

We often regard principles and virtues as positive things, but Chuang Tzu realized that they were in fact neutral qualities. Like other tools invented by humans, principles and virtues could be used for good or bad. Ultimately, it all depended on the person wielding the tool rather than the tool itself.

[...]

To make this point in the most memorable way possible, Chuang Tzu constructed a mind-bending narrative in a masterful and humorous way. He looked at our thinking – that virtues were good – and took us down a path that ended with the opposite conclusion. This forces us to examine our assumptions. For some of us, it can also break us out of the conventional concept.

What should be our goal then, if not virtues? Chuang Tzu, like the sages of antiquity, had a ready answer for this. They taught that we should aim for the Tao, which transcended virtues. It is a state where goodness flows naturally, without being forced by morality or dogma. In that state, we have no need of explicit virtues. It is only when we lose this naturalness that we discover the necessity of keeping virtues in mind. Thus, Tao Te Ching chapter 38 says: "The Tao is lost, and then virtue."

In other words the virtues are a tool, and you can use that tool to do things better (like stealing or doing charity), and the point is not really to just follow some virtue like a guide book for what to do in every situation, but to have a tool, a tool you can use for seeking Tao. Good and bad is relative, and the point of this story I think is to help the reader transcend the duality of good and bad.

Which lead me to think that what is good is to transcend good and bad, which of course is nonsense, but that is how it is. It's nonsense, and I think that the problem is that we try to make sense of it. And the word "problem" here, is again with a negative ring to it, which again is nonsense. To cite a lunatic from the movie 'Waking life': "We've got to learn to make love to the paradoxes that bug us!"

So the sort answer to your question would be that I don't think you can "define" good and bad.

Have a transcendental day

 

[Virola78]

^ yes its relative.
I like the way Zhuang Zu twist the mind :twisted:

The story reminds me very much of stoicism:

"The stoic is not virtuous in order to do good, but does good in order to be virtuous." (Bertrand Russell)

and Spinoza:

"Blessedness is not the reward of virtue but virtue itself"

"Sin cannot be conceived in a natural state, but only in a civil state, where it is decreed by common consent what is good or bad."

And since all our knowledge, as a basis for judgement!, is limited and therefore inaccurate someway or another
leads me to Nietzsche:

"The falseness of a judgement is to us not necessarily an objection to a judgement...The question is to what extent it is life-advancing, life-preserving, species-preserving, perhaps even species-breeding"

"An intellect that could see cause and effect as a continuum and a flux and not, as we do, in terms of an arbitrary division (good-bad, natural-unnatural, true-false...) and dismemberment"

Like you said, it is about transcending duality.