Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 2-minute talk, Ven Jampa Ignyen explores a fundamental Buddhist ethical principle: whether virtuous motivation can ever justify a harmful act. He examines two complex scenarios — Buddhist monks who self-immolate for political benefit, and Tibetans defending their culture and religion against military invasion — to investigate whether the physical act of killing can become positive despite strong compassionate intention. Drawing on the Dalai Lama’s teachings, he clarifies that killing itself always remains negative karma, but can be undertaken with positive motivation for a greater good. The discussion illuminates the Buddhist distinction between the inherent nature of an action and the intention behind it, a core principle in Buddhist ethics.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 08 DA 2001 06 10.mp3
Teacher: Ven Jampa Ignyen
Collection: y Dependant Arising (Ven Jampa Ignyen)
Date: 2001-06-10
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Words: ~369
Burn themselves. Yeah. Yeah. That’s I mean, there, they’re really trying to make a political statement for the benefit of the society. So that can be, yeah, benefit.
The physical act of killing yourself is negative. That can never become positive. But those monks were willing to take on that negative karma themselves for the greater good of for thinking they might be able to do something. So that the act itself is negative, but there is positive. There’s also, you know, a lot of positive motivation there as well.
So that applies same to the Tibetans that killed the Chinese in defense of the Oh, as the Dalai Lama said that actually killing is, you know, not something that, you know, one engages in, but for a particular purpose here, if Tibet’s invaded and if the Tibetans were to take up arms to defend themselves and their culture and their religion, then it’s not necessarily the outcome may be positive from that, even though the killing itself is always negative. Yes. That yep. Again, the killing is negative, but they they can be motivated by a strong positive intention. But even having a strong positive intention never makes the killing positive.
It just means that they’re willing to take on that negative act for, like, a higher purpose. Anyway, we should stop there. Have a break. Oh, that’s interesting. Examine that.
He may have. I mean, if it was a benefit, I think you might have said so. Oh, that you should have reverence for Buddhas. Yes. He did preach this.
He did state them. Probably not quite in those words, but The benefit does yeah. That’s a good question. I might just check on that a little bit. Yep.