What Is the Proper Way to Deal with Wicked People?

In the secular world, there are always people 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 quite obvious: if human nature were originally good, there would be no beings in the three evil destinies; if human nature were originally good, sentient beings would not have the three poisonous afflictions of greed, hatred, and delusion; there would not be so many serious crimes in society, and prisons would not be so full of people—indeed, many people go to prison repeatedly and still refuse to reform. Even heavenly beings do not all have wholesome mental natures; they too have afflictions, especially delusion, which is an enormous affliction. Sentient beings without afflictions would not transmigrate through saṃsāra; 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 innate from the very moment sentient beings exist; it is not generated later in life. Because of ignorance, sentient beings commit evil karma, and thus there is birth and death, transmigrating for kalpa upon immeasurable kalpa. Each sentient being spends the vast majority of its kalpas in the three evil destinies; the kalpas spent living as a human in the human world amount to only one hundredth, one thousandth, or one ten-thousandth of the long river of its life. Some beings in the animal destiny have never obtained a human body to this day and have never left the animal destiny—these are extremely deluded beings, and delusion is evil.

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

But in this process, many people will be brutally harmed and killed by these people. When the good and the evil live together, of course it is the good who suffer and lose out. This has always been the rule in the Dharma realm: when the good and the evil are mixed together, it is always the evil who commit evil, and the good must endure the evil of the evil. Those who constantly stir up trouble and cause incidents are mostly evil people, people at the bottom; those with problems are always those without cultivation. Because the good do not commit evil karma—or grave evil karma—and do not deliberately harm others, they can only be harmed. The evil are bound to commit evil karma and will certainly harm others; 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, others will subsequently be harmed and killed again, and other lives will be threatened. If the lives of the evil are taken to stop them from continuing to harm their fellow humans, these evil people will lose the opportunity to be steeped in wholesome dharmas, will have no chance to correct their evil nature, and the evolution of their mental nature will be obstructed—this too is a great loss. What, then, is the best way to handle this matter? Is there a better way to let the good and the evil each find their proper place and live in peace? How does Amitābha Buddha govern the good and the evil in the Land of Bliss?

The solution is: things gather by kind, and people divide by group—the good and the evil must be separated; sentient beings of different levels and different natures must all be separated and must not live together mixed. This is the rule throughout the Dharma realm. Just as Buddha lands such as the Land of Bliss must be kept separate from Buddha lands such as the Sahā world—because the mental natures of the beings in the two worlds are different, they must not come into contact or live mixed together, so as to avoid trouble. There are many levels of sentient beings, and the views and ideas of beings at each level differ greatly, a myriad of differences that cannot be unified or coordinated; if they live mixed together, there will be endless disputes, but if they are all kept apart, 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, those with different precepts and different practices cannot live together; likewise, among the laity, those with different precepts and practices should as far as possible not live together—otherwise there will be trouble, and the Buddha's precepts will be violated. In the secular world, groups generally form this way automatically: those with different merit and wisdom, different social status, different cultivation and character generally live separately and do not live together. And criminals who commit crimes are imprisoned, isolated from those who have not committed crimes. In the overall scheme, sentient beings are divided into the six destinies according to their different karmic actions and mental natures, and wholesome and evil beings do not live together.