Wholesome Actions, Three Poisons, and Dukkha
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"Intention (cetana) I tell you, is kamma. Intending, one does kamma by way of body, speech, & intellect." - The Nibbedhika Sutta, Anguttara Nikaya 6.63
It’s important to distinguish between activity that clings to particular outcomes, and is aversive to others, and activity which recognises the futility of that. Great Compassion comes from Bodhicitta, the spontaneous wish for all beings to attain release from suffering. In that sense, the outcome has no impact on that, the intention is wholesome. But that encounters the negative behaviour of getting a teaching not suited to them, from their karma.
I read that Ananda gave the wrong teachings: He taught a blacksmith to contemplate the unpleasantness of the body, and a washerwoman to count breaths, and they both became iccantikas. The correct teachings were given, and they both attained awakening.
So, I would talk about it as skilful or unskillful. Buddhism generally is not characterised by secret teachings (with notable exceptions), and I would point to this kind of circumstance as why. Say if a child got hold of something dangerous; causally, the child is responsible. But skilful parenting, means don’t leave knives out.
Upvote:3
Is it sometimes wholesome to perform actions that can temporarily lead to suffering with the goal of "shrinking" its roots?
There is this
Now at that time a baby boy was lying face-up on the prince’s lap. So the Blessed One said to the prince, “What do you think, prince? If this young boy, through your own negligence or that of the nurse, were to take a stick or a piece of gravel into its mouth, what would you do?”
“I would take it out, lord. If I couldn’t get it out right away, then holding its head in my left hand and crooking a finger of my right, I would take it out, even if it meant drawing blood. Why is that? Because I have sympathy for the young boy.”
“In the same way, prince:
....
[3] In the case of words that the Tathāgata knows to be factual, true, beneficial, but unendearing & disagreeable to others, he has a sense of the proper time for saying them. - Mn58
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