How Should One Deal with Evil People Appropriately?

In the mundane world, people are always debating whether human nature is originally good or originally evil, and the arguments never cease. From the Buddhist perspective, this is not a question at all. It is obvious: if human nature were originally good, there would be no sentient beings in the three evil destinies; if human nature were originally good, sentient beings would not have the three poisons of greed, anger, and delusion as afflictions; there would not be so many major crimes in society, and there would not be so many people in prisons—indeed, many people go to prison repeatedly and still do not repent. Even the devas are not all good in their mental nature; they too have afflictions, especially delusion, which is an enormous affliction. Sentient beings without afflictions would not transmigrate; as long as there is transmigration, there are afflictions. Human nature is more evil than good, and some people have no goodness at all.

Why is human nature originally evil? Because of ignorance (avidyā). This ignorance is inherent in sentient beings from the very moment they exist; it is not generated after birth. Because of ignorance, sentient beings create evil karma, and thus there is birth-and-death and transmigration over measureless kalpas upon measureless kalpas. Each sentient being spends the vast majority of its kalpas in the three evil destinies; the kalpas spent in human form living in the human world are one percent, one thousandth, or one ten-thousandth of the long river of its life. Some beings in the animal destiny have never even obtained a human body to this day and have never left the animal destiny—these are extremely deluded beings, and delusion is evil.

Those people who, over beginningless kalpas, have just been reborn among humans from the three evil destinies are extremely deluded and extremely vile, hardly corresponding to human nature at all; their mental nature is very much like, very much in accord with, that of animals. Some of them possess only delusion; some are deluded and also brutal, with an ingrained addiction to killing. As long as they live among humans, they will harm others—harming others is their nature; their murderous and injurious disposition is their animal nature. For such people to acquire human nature and a good nature, they can only, within the human destiny, through many lives and many kalpas, be continuously steeped in wholesome dharmas among humans, gradually removing their animal evilness and taking on human habits. Although human habits are not all that good either, they are still better than animal nature. Only through such cultivation of habituation over life after life can they finally develop a complete personality and a perfect human nature.

But in this process, many people will be brutally harmed and killed by these people. When good people live alongside evil people, of course it is the good people who suffer and lose out. This has always been the rule in the Dharma realm: when good people and evil people are mixed together, it is always the evil people who do evil, and the good people must endure the evil of the evil people. Those who constantly stir up trouble and cause incidents are mostly evil people and people of the lowest kind; those with problems are always those without cultivation. Because good people do not create evil karma—or grave evil karma—and do not deliberately harm others, they can only be harmed; evil people are bound to create evil karma and are bound to harm others, and their original nature cannot be changed at first. So if these evil people have committed extremely grave evil karma, should their lives be taken so that they can no longer continue to harm people, or should their lives be spared so that they can continue to be steeped in wholesome dharmas among humans?

Each of the two choices has its advantages and disadvantages. If their lives are spared, more people will subsequently be harmed and killed, and other lives will be threatened. If the lives of the evil people are taken, curbing them from continuing to harm their fellow beings, these evil people will lose the opportunity to be steeped in wholesome dharmas, will have no chance to correct their evil nature, and their mental evolution will be obstructed—this too is a great loss. Regarding this matter, what exactly is the best thing to do? Is there a better way to let good people and evil people each have their proper place and live in peace? In the land of bliss (sukhāvatī), how does Amitābha Buddha govern good and evil people?

The solution is: things gather by kind, and people divide by group—good people and evil people must be separated; sentient beings of different levels and different attributes must all be separated and cannot live together mixed. This is the rule throughout the Dharma realm. Just as buddha-lands such as the land of bliss must be separated from buddha-lands like the Sahā world—the mental natures of the beings in the two worlds are different, they cannot have contact with each other, cannot live mixed together, so as to avoid trouble. There are many levels of sentient beings; the thoughts and views of beings at each level differ from one another in myriad ways and cannot be unified or coordinated. If they live mixed together, conflicts will be endless; if they are all kept separate, there will be no trouble.

The Buddhist precepts also require this: the principle of sharing the same precepts and the same practice is to be observed. Those who have received different precepts cannot live together; the ordained and the laity cannot live mixed together; even among the ordained, if their precepts and practice differ, they cannot live together; even among the laity, if their precepts and practice differ, they should as much as possible not live together—otherwise there will be trouble, and the Buddha's precepts will be violated. In the mundane world, groups generally form this way automatically: those with different merit and wisdom, different social status, different cultivation and quality are generally separated and do not live together. And criminals who do evil are imprisoned, isolated from those who have not committed crimes. In the overall scheme, sentient beings are divided into six destinies according to differences in their karmic actions and mental natures, and wholesome and unwholesome beings do not live together.