Accepting Our Innate Good and Evil :: Philosophy Essays

Accepting Our Innate Good and EvilThe evil of destruction is like a shadow cast by the replete(p) of creation. Nature gives and takes life. Even on the prison cellular level of the human body, the evil of decay and death exists side by side with the good of growth and health.For example, mend the precise mechanism of cancer remains unknown, research has demonstrated that the malignant transformation of a cell is linked to cancer-causing genes called oncogenes. In normal cells, oncogenes are called proto-oncogenes, which elicit cellular growth and are regulated by cellular genes called tumor-suppressor genes. Tumor suppressor genes, in other words, control growth-promoting genes, which could potentially turn malignant. (Cancer Causation. The run of Disease Abnormal Growth of Cells. Encyclopaedia Britannica, CD 1999). Thus, the potential for cancer not only exists in every cell of the body, but also supports the cells growth and health.Concerning the nature of good and evil, Nichi ren Daishonin states Good and evil have been inherent in life since time without beginningThe heart of the Lotus naturalise is the doctrine of three thousand realms in a single moment of life, which reveals that both good and evil are inherent even in those at the highest stage of perfect enlightenment. The fundamental nature of enlightenment manifests itself as Brahma and Shakra, whereas the fundamental darkness manifests itself as the devil king of the sixth heaven (The literary works of Nichiren Daishonin, p. 1113). The Daishonin explains that all people are endowed with supreme good and evil, as well as all the possible life states in between. We can be either as godly as Brahma and Shakra or as devilish as the devil king.Good and evil, in other words, are innate, indwelling aspects of life. This Buddhist concept is called the oneness of good and evil. This teaching, however, does not mean that evil is good, nor does it imply that the distinction between good and evil is irre levant. Instead, it teaches us to perceive and run over evil insidethereby conquering evil on the outside through faith in the universal goodness of life. In the setting of the Daishonins teaching, good means the fundamental nature of enlightenment, or absolute freedom and happiness resulting from profound self-knowledge. Evil indicates the fundamental darkness, or lifes innate delusion negating the potential of enlightenment and causing suffering for oneself and others. This inner darkness echoes with the despair that our lives are ugly and meaningless it drives a wedge of worship that splits the hearts of people into us and them.