Expert: Justin Choo - 7/30/2008

Question
I am not a Buddhist but would like to know from your point of view How does this religion recover from weakness and how does this view of recovering from weakness affect the offended individual? Also, how does this affect the community? Do you have any personal experiences you could share with me? Thanks the info. would be greatly appreciated.

Answer
Hi Laura,

I am not very sure what you mean by "How does this religion recover from weakness".  I would take it to mean how does one repent from one's mistake.  If you mean other that that, please elaborate in your next post.

I have just posted an article on "repentance" in my blog @
http://lifeislikethat999.blogspot.com/2008/07/repentance.html

I wonder whether this would be an appropriate answer?

[Buddhists believe in the law of kamma, or the law of cause and effect. This is the universal law of retribution, which deals with each action in complete fairness. If an act of misdeed is done, a corresponding "punishment" will be forth coming for that particular person. There is no escape. This is the natural law of retribution. It does not depend on an agent to carry out the punishment. The only repentance the person can mitigate is to realize the mistake and not to repeat it. No amount of punishment or forgiveness can vindicate the person if he does not want to change his behaviour.

In Buddhism, there is no necessity for any authority to punish or forgive anyone who commits misdeeds. In the first place, no one has the authority or power to forgive or punish another person's misdeeds. Secondly, Buddhists realize that the only way to repent is for the person to correct himself willingly. If he thinks some power can forgive his sins, this will give him good reason to commit the misdeeds again. After all, he can always fall back to that power to forgive him again.]

Please come back if this is not the topic.

Justin Choo :-)